On some motives/ motifs
“Experience is indeed a matter of tradition, in collective as well as private life”- Walter Benjamin
If we start from such an understanding then it would be easy to locate the works of Baiju because his works are indeed based on experiences which are both collective and private. If we trace the traditions which have informed and influenced his works considerably, Baiju’s language resembles the expressionistic tradition which has now become “sign” for many artists from kerala. The stark/dark outlines and the neo- expressionistic colours with recurring metaphors like the traditional house, differential perspectives, anthropomorphic figures, heads and mutilated parts, pyramidal forms, coconut trees etc are all part of the collective vocabulary Baiju shares with many artists from the region. What he also shares with these artists is a consciousness/ awareness of the history. This politico social awareness enables Baiju to interpret histories past and present within a dialogical framework. Seeing history dialogically then would enable one to see the narrative as just not a sequence of happenings but also as events and instants of social forgetting and repression. The significance of the retrieval of these moments of mourning and social forgetting would bring to fore the fundamental contradictions which lie deep beneath our contemporary society. The images of Baiju can be read as these wilful acts of remembering those instants. His images are neither direct reportage nor montages from the past but they are experiences which intervene with the subject’s present memory of incidents which have left marks and remain unaltered. Then the reading of his works would be reading those traces.
The motifs that recur in his paintings are of contradictory values. A new born baby in the cradle is depicted with a sword ready to cut. There are similar images of cutting, mutilating and breakages in his paintings. This reminds of the violence inflicted on a generation of a community in contemporary times. It’s these acts of violence and tragedies which create a rift/asymmetry between the outside and inside of a being. In the same painting one can see a pig lost in narcissist seeing of itself in a mirror. The pig is carrying a globe tied to its body rather uncomfortably. Does it remind us about the geopolitical ambitions of a fundamentalist regime? Traditionally also the image of the pig/ boar has varied authoritative meanings within the religious context. The additional globe which was added to the traditional image of the popular boar/pig iconography was the result of the nationalistic ambitions of sectarian groups in the country during the struggle from its colonial powers. Also we find the pig wearing the shoes on two legs. Does it show the continuation of such ideologies in circulation even now? What is it looking at? Is it the charm of its ambitions? Baiju also invokes the claustrophobic through his compositions. Most of his compositions are tightly arranged. If not they are otherwise bordered with images of fences and barricades. Even the house with its walls becomes a sense of restriction and control. In one of his drawing a cat is viewing a portrait of a family. It also holds a fish/key in its mouth. Does it remind of the memory/nostalgia which would also be lost/ swallowed or suppressed? His present is always a continuum of fractured remembrances and nostalgic feelings. The nostalgic is always captivated within enclosures. Yet there are attempts within to be free in those memories which are cherished as safe heavens from the chains of probably the present. There is also a head which illustrates the general idea of human vision as inverted and virtual. In another painting two anthropomorphic images are struggling at something. Their intent is not made clear except their act of struggle. The suggestions are through the landscapes and the vegetations/erections/ horns all over. These forms metamorphose into the modern buildings in the background. The concrete structures are transformed into quasi naturalistic motifs in most of his paintings which further suggests at the ambiguity engulfing our stimulated natural conditions. In a Léger like landscape all beings are laid to rest with mutilated parts spread all around. There is no act of violence overtly. What stand upright are the horizon of city and the dressed/ cut-off trunk of a tree. The people cling to their belongings which are but their memories. Does it remind again of some genocide or the impending doom of humanity? His paintings also bring to fore the existential dilemmas surrounding the human life. It’s these ambiguities and dilemmas which characterise the existence of both the individual and the collective within a realm of fractured memories and suppressed desires for an egalitarian society.
V.Divakar
Art Critic,
Bangalore.
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