SALT OF MY MIND

Paul Cezanne - Les Grande Baigneuse One of the most essential and philosophical things that art does, however cautiously or however strongly, is an inquiry into the concepts of time and space as what it is and what else it could be. Different mediums of Art do this in different ways. But what happens when two forms get together, not just for the sake of getting together, but as a response to each other and a form of communication with each other? The results can be as perplexing and mysterious as it was at the 'Soundscapes' exhibition at the National Gallery. As soon as you enter the exhibition arena, you are shown an introductory film in which the commissioned musicians talk about how they were inspired by the particular pieces they have chosen (It might have been better if the film was shown after the audience went through the soundproofed labyrinth and taken in the works without a prelude into the ideas of what/why they were what they were). After this you are l

What do you do when the last line has been drawn and the final brush stroke has dusted the pastel powder in its final place? Sigh! What an amazing space it is; a calm satisfaction, a bubbling joy and a sense of being in the blank. (Until you start to analyze your work critically few hours later and bury your head in white sheets again!). Of late I have been thinking about these spaces - these 'pauses' that occur between each work, these halts which are more or less resting places for the mind. Painting affords me that space more; unlike dance, where I need to be in class or on stage irrespective of my 'mood' or my 'inspiration', the solitary nature of painting affords me the luxury of a little laziness and prolonged pondering during the process. In fact the new series 'Elite Intervals' is about these pauses - something that is not over yet but has halted, looking left and right to seek out newer inspirations to whet its hunger. The series visually

What is worse, to have a language but nothing to say, or to have a great many things to share but no vocabulary to communicate? There seems to be a constant struggle between form and content, but what about the form of the content and the content of the form? Does every idea need justification in the form of a realized work? What if artists just stood on rooftops and screamed their ideas out instead of mellowing them down with materials and physical tangibility? Sometimes it is better to have no choice at all. The more options you have, the more is the danger of choosing the one that is the most convenient. Letting go of an idea is not the same as 'choosing' one idea over the other.If there was only one idea ever, an artist would would probably stand, for his whole life perhaps, in summer and rain, waiting for the perfect medium that could do justice to his thought.  If an artist can have more than one language to communicate, how does he choose which one is