Spatial Concerns
Exhibition of paintings by Vigyan Vrat
at Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai.

My early encounter with monumental spaces proved to be both formative as well as lasting. Monuments and buildings are created in chosen (beautiful) spaces. The better the landscape, the higher the real and aesthetic value of the building! However, it is rather saddening that this basic criterion is now neglected in urban unplanned construction. New buildings are rammed in between the old space, space that was not meant to accommodate more - ever more. Hence. the oft used terms - "Urban jungle" or "Concrete jungle".

The urban jungle is bound to create a contrast; a contradictory approach to the hard concrete that our urban jungles are today: And this approach may well be called the "Software" of the urban settlements. In architecture it is the green-area. In my visual imagery it is the overlay of` colors over those hard-geometrical designs that underscore. urban planning. Lack of horizontal space gives way to the currently created "high rise" apartments that awfully dominate the human soul. My effort as a creative artist and poet is to counter-balance this well planned and promoted dominance (supported bv abundant public and private finance). It is a challenge I have accepted in my work and have given mv ideas and approaches ample vent too.

My colors float over the urban jungle and push the concrete and the geometric into the background. They look like the vanguard of the monsoon (the white cotton like puffs) that float in to a blank, hurting skv and bring cheer to the thirsty earth and the people. It is the centuries old image and forever persistent. Mine is of` course not the white team of` messengers but the myriad offshoots of the rainbow which arches over a Shravana sky, airy and beautiful. It is an aesthetically sound and romantic image that I cherish within me (and will forever do.)

My colors of course speak even when they constitute the counterpoint to the urban concrete - the hard reality of brick and the stone and the cement. Of` the directive line that must dictate both the constructs and the human flow along the well laid down routes. These floating, fumbling colors are of course part of` the age of old debate that went on for centuries whether the Universe (God) is Saakara (having form) or Nirakara (having no form). In my "Point - counterpoint" approach both Saakara and the Nirakara coexist and inter-communicate (through the tension - that invisible bond that exists between them). So, along with this continuing debate I remain..