From Facts to Values
Exhibition of Paintings and Sculptures
by Milan Sharma, Rohit Verma and Vikas Khajuria
from 2nd to 8th May 2012,
at Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai.

The Healing Trident

In Milan Sharma's work, there is a complete rapport between the disparate Egures. Let us say that love ballads are thereby recreated here visually with a keen finesse.

Yes it is some such like human warmth which permeates the body of these feelingful compositions.The libido is in a state of health,with nothing therein of the days morbid or the self destructive, Clearly,also,a true communication or communion is on in between one colour and another, between objects and subjects, and things and thoughts. Life certainly is seen to being lived to the full,since there is a connection between the lots ofthe details.All parties being on talking terms, the counters or components in these painting have no loose ends to speak of. lt is indeed a full pictorial speech, no matter the, at time, sidelong faces.They all face each other, never expressing any excessive neurotic individuality.The personality ofthese is in union,not in broken fragments.

Here therefore is a celebration,the joy of living, being a fiesta of colour, the flowing of the images from the memory right into the present moment.Thus the familiar bric-a-brac gets a transformative fresh lease of life, not as decorative piece, but as making contribution to the here and now.The multiple faces become acceptable to our inner reason in order that we are at peace with the world of poetic fantasy, not merely weighed down with the crushing order of brute facts.

Largely, the work of RohitVerma takes off after a slow movement aesthetics or in a context which is under water Gently coloured streams,the open air, and solitude it is .A whole variation in moods and emotions is expressed by these, dreams characters. It is ecstasy and delight.At moments the contours of objects imitate the female form,at still other occasion mother earth and her nymphs are seen in loving rapport. lt is thus the compositions, in intention.are soothing and feelingful.This is not a hardware world as is tending to become today,making the heart also hard. So the work speaks through slow movements and pure gesture.The beauty of the human body, in slow motion, is the very basic of the work's appeal.Yes whatever the given mood or theme the artist is concerned with exploiting the ability of his image to make beautiful and expressive postures .And these postures and gestures and attitudes are rhythmic and harmonious.

Several of the highly coloured figures are slim,graceful,frail, and as though floating upon a stream. ldealized figures as they are, yet they are also symbols of the benign states of being. Here it is not a warrior`s world of conflict but of inward musing and reflection, and, in some cases, of a pining love and romance.And all this without exaggeration.To remember that Rohits works are not copies of life, nor mere mirror held up to outward appearances.What they present is,as already implied,the colourful poignancy ofthe human soul,and its concealed longings,and so they touch the heart.

The history ofart in our times can be viewed as a pendulum swinging between the urge to copy and the urge to invent It is obvious that we are now far removed from the former Instead of relating to external facts, visible for all to see. artist today prefer to go inwards and conduct a specialized dialogue with each other as also with objects. Hence the novel nature ofthe present sculpture,often of wood.This artistVikas Khajuria is trying to steer clear of imitation his images are nit from past but from the creative mind in a totally contemporary idiom .By the very processes of refining he turns his material into the eloquence ofa fine art.

Vikas reconciles the dual attractions of art and reality with skill. He cannot therefore be accused of replacing the poetry of invention with the prose of fact .ln this way his work is a bridge between worlds of the past and presentTo elaborate the above a fraction more,the sculptor shuttles between the earlier art of affect, and that ofthe exactitudes of the physical eye,such as the academics represented.This distinction may well be expressed in terms ofwhat may be called the subjective or objective artistic intellect.The 'objective' intellect being one which is eminently impersonal. and the 'subjective', equally personal .The former disengaging itself as much as possible from its own prepossessions and striving to represent objects as they exist; the other viewing all objects in light of feelings and preconceptions. Of course, it is needless to add that no artistic mind can be exclusively 'objective' nor exclusively 'subjective'. This sculptor holds his balance to complete satisfaction.

- Keshav Malik