JAI ZHAROTIA FANTASY AND SOUL
Jai Zharotia is an artist well known for his versatility the numerous awards that he ahs received are proof of his talent. These include, among others, the Graphic Wood Cut. Shahitya Kala Parishad, 1979, Silk Screen Printing, Shahitya Kala Parishad for Lithographics, 1980; Ceramics Drawing, AIFACS, 1987; National Award, Lalit Kala Academy, 1993. He has had number of solo as well as group shows both within the country and abroad. An exhibition of his paintings a being currently held at the LTG Art Gallery. The following are experts from an interview.
The dream like image that float by in your work create a dilemma for the viewer. Are they in Jungian terms ‘self representations of the unconscious’ or more?
The most important aspects for me is to give form to my emotional strings. Fantasy is perhaps a more apt term, for it encompasses the realm of dreams as well as a communicative mechanism for expression of human experience. It is in a sense, a liquid volume of the soul. I emote using a language of metaphors that go beyond just surface meaning. It become necessary then to search of delve in to the painting, to unfold the several layers of meaning, just like it self.
Your recent works have a completely new direction. They seem to catch you in a pensive mood.
Perception and interpretation of what happens around us is, to a great extent, coloured by one’s own feeling are moods. This leads to an urge lot self introspection a desire to know one own self a search within to solve the mysteries of life. Why do certain images insinuate themselves in to my work or why I hit certain emotional chords, the key to the riddle of these uncontrollable manner, with his head tucked in like a fetus, a child afloat in the dark recess of its pre-natal world.
There are certain motifs that recur in your work time and again. They form the connecting thread in your work like the boat, the masked clown, the running man, etc.
Instead of using a straight –forward narrative, I m more interested in creating a universal language of symbols that transcend the personal. The floating the boat, for example, which rocks through the troughs and creates of flowing water, becomes a symbol of the instability of life, which is always in a constant state of flow. The man indicates satisfaction, the denial of the mundane in life or search for new horizons.
Composites forms play an integral role in your work. Are they a manifestation of the multi-faced nature of human kind?
There is very fine line that divides the human from the animal. Every human being a shade imperfect. These flaws manifest themselves in the form of bestial behavior in times of emotional stress. To capture the nature of a person by giving him animal attributes has been a common occurrence. In creating composite figures, I am more concerned with quick-silver changes that take place in human beings, blurring the distinction between human and animal. Therefore the figure not necessarily those of the visible world, they are components of my won vision.
One sees a definite inclination to subordinate details to the compositions, which again is divided into several panels.
Dividing canvases in to smalls panels is like building a unit with bricks. It helps to create a strong total image. Colour defines form; and linearity is expressed by the earthy tones I use, I am more attracted towards pure colour and have given undercoating of red on each canvas, which lurks beneath each image.
Over the years one sees a great deal of versatility in your medium of expressions.
For me the medium is just a means and not an end in itself; for technique always follows vision. As every medium has its limitations, and it is not possible to achieve every nuance I want in any one medium. I m constantly exploring, searching for new ways to express my feelings. The delicacy of water colours works very well for the ethereal forms and line details. In sculpture one can bring out the solidity of form, whereas in oil it is possible to combine the two as desired, and therefore these recent works have been pained in oil.
Do you see your work evolving in one particular direction in the future?
To move in a pre-planned manner is a futile exercise, for human beings are afloat in a pool of desires that envelops them from all sides. I think it will take me more than a lifetime to fathom its depth.
THORUGH A FINE MIST
Jai Zharotia, known primarily for his graphics is now exhibiting his oils on canvas that reflects his preoccupation with mythology and composites forms that try to reflect the unity of not only existence but also experience.
In fact the content of his paintings seems to plumbs the depths of the human-mind the conscious and the subconscious. While on the one level, they deal with human relationships, man-woman interactions; at another, they are the mirrors of the internal struggles of hidden elements of the complex process of the thought.
One such work is desire which has the male aspects as a mauve flower who coyly bows in front of a woman in red. The confrontation between the two is both physical and mental, the male the supplicant and the dominating, evident from the space occupied by the figures on the canvas.
The artists also made profuse use of tribal symbolism combining it with more traditional imagery that has become internalized over age in the Indian mindset. The eternal float is an example of such work, with its overtones of death and the transcendent. The boat in blue background with the life-tree above it emphasing the theme.
The same is true of the Mystical Circus I to an extent that repeats the imagery used in other works. A touch of the whimsical enters his comment on the fettered mind in poor Bird that features a woman dangling a paper bird on a stick in front of her.
Usually his works are bright in constant to the thematic content and treatment-competent if not exciting. The artist has emphasized the texture sometimes using a thin almost transparent layer of the colour next to a thick patina of pigment, thus adding to the restless quality of his works that move between myth and reality constantly which is turn gets reflected in the unevenness of his works.
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