Deepak Shinde debuts with his first solo show in a private gallery – Art & Soul, with perspectives of a painter painting from Bombay on the edge of a forest. The tiger has been an emblematic leitmotif of his practice, this time he extends it to the life we humans endanger (like in the Jataka tales of our people) in contemporaneity through a practice that has held witness to the past 6 decades.
The Flora Fountain exemplifies Bombay’s cosmopolitan culture – a fountain crowned by the Greco-Roman goddess Flora – who looks towards the bay of Bombay symbolizing the maritime mercantile trade the city hosted and through it attracted a diverse populace drawn in by the riches. Until then these were mangrove islands that sat south of the better ports of Sopara, Thal and Chaul. The city was then reclaimed by using mud from the laterite hills of the Western ghats and grew into a unified island from seven islands divided by tidal creeks. As the city grew it began to edge into the forest at Borivali, Thane and other parts where the Sanjay Gandhi National Park forms one of the largest natural reserves within an urban metropolis. Deepak lives at the very edge of this forest – where social income housing has now been offsetted by the need of luxury habitats that have a forest view. Bringing forth conflict between man and wildlife, every year leopards stray into building compounds searching for stray dogs and sometimes get away with children at play. Trees are felled from this forest for metro yards and mangroves disappear as the city reclaims a ferocious sea – to bring us closer, faster and denser but we become distant as a people.
Deepak arrived in the city 1966 to study at the Sir JJ School of Arts, Bombay, from where he graduated in 1972 in painting. But his education began in the diverse milieu of the city – with him meeting Blanche St. Rita Magdalena Gonsalves his partner better known as the curator Niyatee Shinde but also drawing close friendships with the artist Harkishan Lal – who apart from being a JJ School alumni had lived in Paris and practiced in the city. Shinde frequented other artists such as Tyeb Mehta, Akbar Padamsee and VS Gaitonde. It was an education for a boy born a year before independence in 1946 in Yavatmal – a district with deciduous forests that house tigers. The ‘tiger belt’ with reserves and forests corridors extends from here onto Chandrapur, Gadhchiroli and across into the state of Madhya Pradesh. He belonged to a feudal joint family of Dhangars a people closely connected to the land and the rearing of animals. Back in his village without fear of a sunstroke he would watch farmers till their land and toil in the scorching sun. He realised farming was not only an act of ploughing, seeding and harvesting but an art form – a part performance and ritual – to tend to a field so that nature would allow the farmer a bounty. Deepak drew colour and form from the popular imaginary of rural Maharashtra.
Holographic Stickers and wrappings began to be used across India as decoration as soon as it became a popular industrial product. Boxes of sweetmeats or mithais would feature them reflecting light required of a joyous situation. The mirror and its reflection of light which formed streams of colour – a palette caused by refraction captivated Shinde as a young artist. To be able to replicate it in painting was near to impossible for an artist using paint and a canvas. Shinde began experimenting with colour and hologram that he would paste and paint behind acrylic surfaces creating transparencies that would mirror light through its reflective surface.
Mixed – Media today is an act where many a time digital prints are layered with watercolour or acrylics to ease the effort of painting or drawing. Or by layering surfaces onto each other to create depth and perspective. Shinde labours in complexity as a painter – he actively uses a mixer of reflective holographic stickers and sheets that he then surrounds with deep inks of primary colour. These react and form chemical transitions of unique hues. Deepak Shinde returns with this solo with a purpose in painting, he is attempting to articulate an aesthetic that is devoid of western aesthetical markers. Many artists in Maharashtra have defied the logic of painting and mixing colour as dictated by the curriculums in their art schools. They have tried to mirror a grassroots palette. But Shinde is adamant with these series of paintings – it embraces a maturity and painterly prowess that comes from years of practice and observation. He chooses his subjects in accordance to his personal mandate as a painter.
Across India shrines are set in informal corners, between overgrown Banyan trees and crumbling walls, in dark damp spaces by the roadside, they are often nestled inside crevices that are cooled by the shade and away from the dust. This is quotidian religion for a common man. He is not communal and seeks religion for comfort from the grind of the day. He is being denied his labour, he is failing to support a family, his daughter drops out of school due to the paucity of money, he cannot treat the diseases his family is afflicted with, he fears uncertainty with very little rest. Basic access to health is expensive and an unsettled mind drifts towards a supernatural escape. Worries that are soothed by faith. A faith that has been militarised for communal capital in politics, where once a deity who was sought out for strength has become a moniker for aggression. We all grew up reading the Hanuman Chalisa a set of verses in Awadhi when recited conquered our unknown fears our minds had conjured. Hanuman , a protagonist in the Ramayana, was popular among young men who wrestled in akharas or traditional wrestling rings and exercise groups. He is often seen as the deliverer of justice and the protector of the weak. Nationalism has erased those associations and transformed him into an anime character by appropriating a peoples deity for violent deeds.
Deepak Shinde reappropriates the narrative and the deity. Hanuman here flies with the Sanjeevani Mount – a legendary hillock full of medicinal herbs – in greens, purples and pinks. Across temples instead of adorning the statue with silver leafing, attendants stick holographic stickers on the statue that brings about a shine that dazzles in the stringed lights and many lamps that adorn such places. The statue itself if not a carved sculpture of the deity is a rock formation plastered with vermillion red or sindoor. The process of preparing the surface is known as ‘lepan’ and is like applying gesso onto a canvas. The holographic sticker is then cut into decorative designs and is accompanied with enamel eyes to reveal the form of the deity. This ritual reflect how very little resources shape the imaginaries of people.
