'The Last Supper' - Exhibition review

‘What is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would.’ These words from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland weirdly strike you long after you have seen this exhibition.

Before, though, you are oblivious in your presumptions.

‘Christ!’ You murmur under your breath, partly because of the vapors of the humid day and partly because you subconsciously guess everything that you are about to encounter. NGMA Bangalore in collaboration with the Seagull Foundation for the Arts, Kolkata has the self-taught Indian artist Madhvi Parekh’s ‘The Last Supper’ on show, which is inspired mainly by Leonardo Da Vinci’s namesake and is a collection of Biblical tales rendered as reverse paintings on acrylic sheets. You nonchalantly recollect all the ‘last’ suppers you have seen, and apprehend exactly what you will witness as you step in to the gallery.

But just as unexpectedly as Alice falls down the rabbit hole, you plummet into an emotional wonderland. The assumptions quickly crumble.

The technical virtuosity and the purity of intentions associated with Renaissance art have been asserted and abandoned by various artists through the centuries, and the refreshing vitality of Parekh’s works lie in doing neither. Though there is a palpable sense of nostalgia around the gallery, her Christ and his followers are careful not to smother you with it, and you are left as an uninterrupted and surprised traveler in a dubiously familiar land.

What appears initially as a naive technique made rougher perhaps by the challenges of the medium used, gradually reveals itself to be the artist’s emotional unfamiliarity with Christianity and its narratives. The spontaneous wonder which she must have felt while staring at the walls of Santa Marie delle Grazie at Milan have refused to be distilled, and often overpowers the narratives itself. She fuels her longing for comprehension of this foreign iconography with a sincere observation and responsiveness which seamlessly translate into the works. She embraces the unknown, rather than see it as an obstacle to be solved and conquered.

The figures and forms emerge out of the frames as if they were slightly prematurely born, kicking their way out in earnest. Dots, swirls, and streams of color rush around, sometimes held back by the brush and thickened with paint but never with their spirited gait halted. Christ emerges in front of you as a terrain to be explored rather than as just a recognizable appearance. Angels are but almost unrecognizable blots of black with tiny wings drawn by a delighted kid who cannot suppress her awe. Historic relevance and references, religious significance, and mythological implications become inconsequential. Neither is there any hint at political or social symbolism. There are no pursuits of monumental ideals. There are no strained attempts at appropriations, and a complete refrain from contextualizing the subject-matter to her own Indian culture. All that you are entrusted with are original, keen portrayals of the joy of discovering something new.

The color sense is doubtlessly influenced by the subtle palette of European art. The panels and the flat perspectives remind you of Indian miniature painting. Or wait! Is it ancient Egyptian - inspired? Somewhere else is also an undeniable influence of Paul Klee’s stars, moon forms and animal faces, and you admire how these have been assimilated into a personal language.

 ‘The last supper’ stands in the last room as a perfect finale. This work carries an air of a quiet, disarming acceptance. The lines are still hers, unpretentious and independent, but the energy is mellow. The tranquil people sitting down for supper are released from her inquisitive hold. She seems to have painted them unhurriedly, calmly. Her search finished and her fervor pacified, she seems to be bidding goodbye to her fascinations.

You bid a cheery goodbye as you walk out of this endearing wonderland of culture and religion explored not with the aim of producing statements and commentaries, but to justify one’s own appetite.

The show does not ask too much effort from your intellect or your emotions (except perhaps a stubborn little sense of marvel), and yet it succeeds in expressing volumes with its guileless maturity. 

EXHIBITION DETAILS

‘The Last Supper’

Artist – Madhvi Parekh

National Gallery of Modern Art, Bangalore

(Karnataka, India)

Presented by :

NGMA Bangalore 

(In association with) 

The Seagull Foundation for the Arts, Kolkata

26^th May 2016 – 26^th June 2016
Image credit - saffronart.com