Some of the paintings that stare at a viewer appear likesnapshots of walls adorned with graffiti. The other paintings on display plantthe seed of curiosity and make one pause in their footsteps. Curiosity, becausenone of the paintings that were exhibited at Sunaparanta recently seemed tohave forms or ideas that conform to those we are used to seeing every day andnone had titles as a means of explaining themselves. “One has to get used to itby looking at it more often,” says Suhas Shilker by way of introduction. “I donot find abstract art bizarre or something out of the world. I took to it 30years ago and stuck to it though I majored in portraiture in Art College.”
The whole set of paintings took Shilker around three yearsto make, but he has been working on the biggest of them all for two years. “Ihave changed it so many times till it finally came to this state. And then Isaid enough,” he explains about the painting. His elaboration was a lesson inabstract art: “If the painting is predictable, I do not like it. Then I disturbthe best part of the painting. That’s the risk factor. The best part is youdestroy it visually and then you see what you can do with your destruction.Here is where one completely enters in the area of the unknown. One creates acrisis voluntarily and one tries to resolve it. The process of resolving it isthe painting.”
Some of the paintings have huge globs of paint “ some globslook like an entire can of paint was consciously dropped onto the canvas “creating a miniature terrain and giving the painting an appearance of 3D. “Myinterest is in the colour as colour itself and as a material also. Pigment is acolour and material,” informs Shilker. Different marks can be seen in the paintand on the canvas and Shilker says that these marks are made by differentelements such as twigs, brushes, mediums and colours. “I have explored howthese marks interact with each other and create a harmonious whole. There areinfluences of weathered surfaces which I see on the walls after the rains andthe mold or fungus collects on the wall creates various textures. I find theweathered surfaces of metal, wood, visually rich.” The paintings are alsopeppered with alphabets and numbers, but Shilker says these are used merely fortheir form.The colours Shilker uses are influenced by seasons and temperaturechanges.
The last lesson he gives before signing off is, “When anabstract painting becomes predictable, it becomes part of furniture.”
