/ARTS WEEKLY/BRITAIN: Between Dualities of Past and Present

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Beverly Andrews

LONDON, Jun 24 2003 (IPS) - Arpana Caur is one of India’s most celebrated contemporary artists and yet her roots are also very much part of India’s historical past. She manages to achieve the difficult task of blending the past and present in her work. Her new show at London’s October Gallery entitled ‘Between Dualities’ is the latest work from this remarkable artist.

Arpana Caur, a gentle, diminutive figure, chats cheerfully chats about her work in the October Gallery’s busy cafe. She says she is much inspired by India’s rapid transformation into a modern superpower.

"Delhi has been destroyed and rebuilt so many times over its long history," she says. "In the city, you can have a Mughal monument from the 13th century directly across from a power station. Where I live, there is the oldest wall in the city and women still bake their bread in clay ovens but around them are all signs of the future. So these clashing symbols is what I use to influence my work.”

”I take centuries old traditions in the use of colour and figurative painting and I show how this symbols bump up against modernity,” she adds.

It has often been said of Arpana Caur’s art that she presents a radical view of the reality of our lives by taking familiar images and placing them in a completely new context. This blend between the ancient and modern world can be seen quite startlingly in Caur’s painting which depicts the Buddhist figure of Siddharth and his departure from the city to seek a life of quite contemplation.

The emotional and physical comfort he is rejecting is indicated in the form of a white carpet gently floating through the air, but what is startling about the painting is that the world Siddharth rejects is shown as a modern one filled with skyscrapers.

Here the artist takes an ancient story and gives it a contemporary twist, and in doing so suggests that this tale has much importance to our contemporary lives, as it did to those living at the time of Buddha, 2,500 years ago.

In ‘Connections’ Caur depicts the Tree of Enlightenment alongside the Tree of Suffering. The Tree of Suffering is shown engulfed in flames representing the pain and suffering which often seems to plague our modern world but floating above a sleeping Buddha is the Tree of Enlightenment with an electric plug dangling in the direction of the Tree of Suffering, suggesting perhaps that enlightenment is there for those who choose to accept it.

Caur has constantly been faced with the challenge that other contemporary artists in India have faced, and that is finding a way of embracing modernity without turning your back on your cultural traditions. "We contemporary artists talk about contemporary themes but in our veins runs the heritage of our country," she says. "You cannot ignore the contemporary world but it’s also important that it isn’t allowed to overwhelm you. To me this is a crucial balance that I try to bring to my work."

Traditional and cultural heritage is important not just for Caur’s work but also in the choices she has made about her career. "At the beginning of my career I was offered an opportunity to study in London but after being here for only a short time I felt could no longer stay. In the end I returned to India, I found in England I no longer had any cultural points of reference. I needed to be back home."

As a woman Arpana Caur had to battle prejudice against female artists. "In the seventies when I first started it was extremely difficult for me and although my work was always well reviewed it was difficult to actually sell. In the end, everything did change not just for me but also for other female artists quite dramatically about 10 years ago.

"My work along with the work of other female artists started to be sold at the same prices as male artists. I put this down to two reasons. First, our work was being sold at auctions abroad where collectors simply wanted to buy good work, and the fact that we were women was of no importance. I also think the change in attitudes in India toward contemporary art in general has had a huge effect.

"When I first started, there were only two galleries in Delhi, now there are over a hundred. So with more outlets to show and hopefully sell out, the situation has dramatically improved for both men and women. Artists used to have to subsidise their careers by teaching but now being an artist can be economically viable."

Although attitudes toward female artists and even art in general may have changed in India, Caur is not unaware of the growing religious intolerance that is spreading throughout the country.

"Our country has always been prone to religious violence. I think it comes from the fact that many of the promises of independence have not been met and unfortunately at the moment its getting worse,” she says. ”But so far, the freedom of expression on the whole is still there. You are still free to work."