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In the past 15 years of my experience I have , in drawings tried to etch that limitless being. In this effort of giving that being a from, the subtlest, touched the pulse of the horizon: I saw its thickness slumbering in the gross, in the insentient. I saw the glaciers changing, melting, disintegrating rendering and flowing into
Streams. I was numb helpless in front of the awesome, bowing reverently.
Drawing to me is like a blossoming garden with chirping bird, ant houses, and fragrance of flowers. Bargad, people, dawn, dusk, pathways, clamor, rasalila of Krishna everything is part of it.
The heavens, shivaloka, hearth beneath the conferrer of energy, kalika, motionless saints. stars, planets and milky way, nagakanyas, innumerable gods and goddesses, chanting of mantras, ragas and their counterparts, angels, pure indraloka, vishnuloka and yet something beyond which transcended all this.
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I went down my memory lane to the stories I had heard. I kept going beyond these lines, touching them, nudging them, and feeling them. Some reflections did come about which were as deep as stories, many disintegrated. I played a game with them, which was untitled and silent. This was a incomplete game, untrue. It was apparent that the lines were alive and talking, communicating visually.
The hissing of snakes like bows releasing arrows.The moving of the cows limiting the lines: hunting of lions, wild pigs, confusing the lines: fear etched very clearly in them, dropping, shivering, dancing lines. All in a procession, armed, in a battlefield.
The reflection of the world that I created were awesome and mysteriously strange.
I saw the lines melting into Adya Puran, I saw the etching change into sculptures, remembrance changing into a new language, temples changing into mere chanting of mantras. It was echoing with the ringing of bells, echoes of the temples, totally in tune like flute. I used to get drawn automatically: something slowly and subtly as time: sometimes stunned like a magnet.
I saw lines dancing like gypsy, swinging, oscillating and swirling. I saw them taking a flight like a bird, like butterflies, conversing like myna and parrots. I saw bees wooing the flowers, the honeybees getting converted into beehives.
I saw many a lines alter into string of light, enlighten the whole universe. I saw the potent creator of the universe Brahama transform into mere lines. I saw the defenses of Brahama, Kali ,Chinamasta melt into many people: laughing in ecstasy. The lines Balbhadra, Subhadra, Jaganath. The appearance of Natraja Uma Mahesh, Nandi, Bharav, Maha Mayyai dissolving into subtle lines. I visualised Radha waiting in eagerness for divine lover. I saw Madan totally engrossed in the ecstasy with Rati, I chose the way of experimentation, wheather it was paper, canvas or litho. I have used pastels, inks, acrylic, pigment color and more or less work is done on the pigment only.
Refection of the limitless were caught in time. Nature took from, expanded from dual to yet numerous. Canvas slipped down from the walls and surrendered on the floor, transforming, into stranger objects , like on the potters wheel rotating, sensitizing, coloring. Many things got involved with this infinite; which is mysterious, it is abundant with with energy; is dual, provoking anaylsis, experimental and true.This a small exodus in the long and ardous journey of self introspection.
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Shridhar Iyer is a self taught artist. The atmosphere in Bharat Bhavan where he is employed. perhaps inspired him to try his hand at drawing, and thereby he found his metter. Working day and night and around the clock evolving the spread of the drawing stroke by tiny stroke, with pen and ink, weaving, enmashing and releasing the image with dedication given only to those born to art, Iyer has created a monumental series of drawings within the span of half a decade.
From the inorganic to the organic, form geometry to the awry, from the conceptual to the real---Iyer creates a pulsating rhythm which makes the plausiable possible.
Among the number of artists from Madhya Pradesh who have taken seriously to drawing during the past decade, Shridhar Iyer is certainly one of the most serious one.
Bhopal
May 27, 1989 J. SWAMINATHAN |
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