Just like that, quite suddenly one day, one happens to get acquainted with someone, and something about him touches, entices one’s soul so intensely that almost unnoticeably, a new, beautiful and colourful relationship begins to evolve. The subtle details and facets of his nature start unraveling and gradually this unforeseen relationship takes on strength. Then one easily accepts him with all his qualities and flaws, and that relationship comes alive, else it remains quite superficial.
Very similar is the experience of an artist when he comes across a new artistic medium to express himself. The behaviour and the finer characters of the medium tempt him and appeal to him so intensely, that he embarks on the arduous and dedicated struggle to express himself completely and purely through that medium, without allowing it’s pros and cons, possibilities and limitations to hamper him. He gradually starts understanding the subtleties, the persona and the underlying layers of the medium and in a way, he breathes life into the medium with his devotion, and ends up enriching himself in his process. Possibly, that artistic medium too comes to life and begins experiencing and responding to the artist’s sensitivity.
That medium becomes his personal dialect ! After many years of excellent landscape painting, Gajanan’s art had come to a certain point. At this point certain unique abstract and unidentifiable shapes and forms which had suddenly evolved in his landscapes started beckoning to him and serenading him with a very different and wholesome visual experience. Gajanan too started regularly communing with those enticing and unfamiliar shapes. Unbeknownst to him, his landscape paintings had also started changing. The ‘landscape’ started fading from the landscape paintings. His painting, now separated from the support of the landscape, started finding it’s own way to fulfillment. The conflict to wholeheartedly accept these changes used to be palpable in Gajanan’s work those days. Gajanan was in frantic search!
Then suddenly somewhere, somehow he came across this colourful sticky tape..the cellotape! And Gajanan’s soul became so engulfed in this tape, so completely engulfed, that even he had no notion of the depth of his attachment. Gajanan and the cellotape soon became irrevocably stuck to each other!
Gajanan had found a sense of belonging with this cellotape and he began using it to create art. He started exploring and examining the possibilities of this new medium. He went on discovering new qualities, subtleties and facets to it. The cellotape too must have started unraveling and exhibiting it’s colourful innermost nature to him. For Gajanan, this process must have been extremely laborious, but certainly one that was equally tempting and full of beautiful experiences. And so it happened that this neglected cellotape, usually carelessly torn up for packaging and electrical fittings went straight to Gajanan’s soul, touched it and remained stuck there. This tape, so far used only to securely shut crammed boxes, went on to open a floodgate of new possibilities in Gajanan’s creativity. His work began and went on relentlessly. He would turn Mumbai upside down seeking out cellotapes of various shapes and colours.
He never developed any grandiose notions like, “I have discovered a unique medium” or “I’m using this because nobody else has used it before” or “I have entirely understood the connection between my medium and my creativity”. Like every artist, every artistic medium has it’s own nature, it’s own positives and negatives. Possibilities, limitations, faults, talents, all come together in a unique chemistry to make that artist or that medium.
I have always maintained that, just as an artist seeks something in a medium, so does the medium seek something from the artist. Just as the artist examines the medium, so does the medium examine the artist. The process of gradually tapping the other’s potential, of seeking to understand the other’s innermost mind happens from both sides. Maybe the medium assesses the merit of the artist and only then decides whether or not, and how much of itself to reveal to him. Once the cord between the medium and the artist is established, they both start nourishing and strengthening each other from within. The artist enriches the medium as the medium enriches him. The growth of both due to the other is an excellent and true indicator of a beautiful coexistence.
It does not seem like there has been any compromise in what Gajanan wishes to convey through his visual language due to the particular character and behaviour of his medium. On the contrary, he has made excellent use of the qualities of the cellotape in his paintings.
There does not appear to be any innate conflict about each other between Gajanan and his painting. This is what imparts an effortless beauty to these paintings. Upon viewing them, one first observes the pure visual experience of the painting itself, not merely the technique. To my immense fortune, I have been a constant witness of Gajanan’s devoted foray into his cellotape art for many, almost 14 to 15 years.
On the occasion of this exhibition of his paintings at this point in his creative process, he has allowed us to partake of a beautiful visual experience. I congratulate him as well as the cellotape and wish them the very best.