arpana caur

It would be erroneous to make a statement that clearly defines my  ‘artistic pursuit’ and suggesting that my work emphasise something concrete is fallible as it’s completely subjective and time bound.

And this distresses me as the want to find a concrete interface within my work almost necessitates the artistic pursuit, that of which I do not have. So where does that leave me, in exactly the same position as a sea farer, forever launching his/her bait and waiting for a sign.

On days when there is no work done (on a tangible level) and the lone painter and his painting sits in mute conversation, much is accomplished, dreary eyes, matted colours, time almost switched to a standstill, and the mounting pressure to make sense of it all. Each thought narrows and cancels another thought, so what sort of a statement should I make?  I nervously try and get away from subjectivity and concentrate on colour. Yes, ‘colour’ is the only reason why I can still continue to feel comforted as painter. The dominant colour, the supportive colours, the highlights, the shadows, a loose brush stroke quickly swerves to suggest wind or something unexplainable. It’s in between what’s visible and what’s not or what can be painted and what can’t and where does the boundary lie… trying to find a niche within this vast magnitude of painting can be a daunting task.

But I guess like any other activity, in art there are periods of great awareness followed by blind and cavernous patches. During the awareness or the slumpness, I ventured on doing these paintings, (which are been exhibited) with great hesitation and doubt, the initiation was hard but then I carried on, more out of blind faith than clarity.

These paintings are less about anything definite, as I found it problematic to keep everything lucid within a painting. I’ve found it hard to distinguish between exactly what needs to be painted and what needn’t, so in these works I’ve been effectively not representing what I don’t, or not defining what I needn’t, just focusing on where I wanted to apply colour. I keep finding loopholes within my search and trying to rectify it is part of the process, and I constantly change my approach and thinking which can be volatile, for often I find myself at a dead end, looking inconsolably at the emptiness I created myself.