Standing there in the morbid ICU where his brother laid prostrate awaiting treatment, artiste Karl Antao watched his surroundings carefully. Introspection followed observation. Silence was filling up the space quickly. Within that unsettling silence, he found stillness. He liked it. “I wanted to sketch what I saw but I didn’t. Something stopped me, however, it was utterly fascinating,” he says. In an exhibition of anthropomorphic sculptures, primarily in wood with hints of bronze, titled Still Life, he encapsulates the various imageries of his aflutter mind.
These are a product of three and a half years of work. The collection has several torso carvings. Through them, he recreates objects of functional life such as a kettle, bricks, mirrors and more. “The emotive charge of a construction worker’s brick, a politician’s chair or a community waterspout carries them beyond the mundane message, when juxtaposed with the astral bodies of his protagonists who are sky clad or forest covered.
Under Antao’s skilled hands the neck morphs into roots, the body resembles a fibrous plant or a bird nests in the belly of a standing figure, who contemplates the world with her eyes closed. All the characters, whether they are torsos, heads or full-bodied sculptures, appear to be contemplating their inner life, for their eyes are either shut or inward-looking,” says art critic, Georgina Maddox.
Antao has really pushed the limits with Still Life in terms of the medium he’s used. It’s an ancient medium, one of the most challenging ones too. Woodcraft techniques require specific skills because of its lack of malleability. But Antao is undeterred. For him, the bigger the challenge, the greater the excitement. “Wood takes its own life and narrates its story,” he says. November 30, from 11 am to 7 pm, at Gallery Espace, New Friends Colony.