MURARI RB

One artist who qualifies in the category of ‘self taught’ is Murari R.B.Self taught I should say is an understatement, since he comes from an illustrious family of seminal artists who had made a dent in the development of modernity within the Madras Art Movement in the early 60s. Murari is the grandson of Professor S. Dhanapal the sculptor and son of the artist Professor R.B. Bhasakaran. Murari’s artistic choice has also been configured by his genes drawing his lineage from a distinguished artistic family.Growing up in a family that has nurtured art and hence the creative talents, Murari’s art education commenced at the feet of his grandfather who taught him the rudiments of drawing. But quizzing Murari on this dimension of his early life, when he along with his two elder brothers was sent from Pallavaram where he resided to his grandfather’s house in Mandavelli, his memories are not very pleasant. As a young eight year old visiting the studio of a noted sculptor - his grandfather, whose deft play of fingers with clay mesmerized him and the studio space filled with tools and materials were inviting him to visually and tactically explore, he was tethered to a strict regimentation in academic exercise of drawing straight and curved lines and various geometric shapes. These bindings were a total anathema for young Murari but punished himself to go through the ordeal. Says Murari, “grandfather was all about art instructions while with my father it was the availability of resources, while the former was authoritarian teacher, the latter had a liberal approach”. Losing interest he began his exploration with materials that were freely available with his father, who imposed no disciplined artistic measures with him. It is within these contradictions as well the freewheeling ambience that Murari had his grounding in art and his talents were nurtured. When questioned why he did not obtain his art pedagogy through a recognized art institution, Murari is quick with a repartee, “my grandfather and father are an institution in themselves, so why go to an art school”.Murari nevertheless had continued with his indulgence in art throughout his school and college career showing the necessary sensibilities of actively engaging with art. He was skilled in rendering portraits, realistic landscapes, still lifes and other subjects with verisimilitude.Having romanced with art for the past sixteen years, Murari has arrived with his visual language, which is abstract, a direct polarity to his father and grand father’s style that remains undergirded with images.ABSTRACTION AS A VISUAL LANGUAGEEngaging with the language of abstraction requires fundamentally a thorough understanding of the elements of line, colours, values, space and textures. These are the tools for the artist to explore at will and ultimately create his own artistic vocabulary. Murari’s language of abstraction has a variety as well diversity. His energy is made evident in the canvases that are a riot of colours and lines.His methodology of creating an abstraction begins with an encounter of the tabula rasa of the white canvas. By stroking in the first colour he engages with the canvas, with the consequence the process of painting completely takes over him and through laboured layers Murari constructs and sculpts his from and textures through colours. It is the layering which allows a precipitation of his deeply held emotions and feelings which takes shapes intuitively in his pictorial space.Murari consciously arbitrates with formal elements to create abstraction as his language. The reasons are not far to fetch. He is vehemently clear that his works will not bear any traces of his artistic lineage and hence not characterized as influenced. For him figuration is an absolute anathema deeply scorched within his subconscious; that he rarely allows an identifiable form to mark its existence. And if the trace remains then it is dictated by the needs of his colours, space and the entire composition. His works in many respects is a pure and true interface between visual elements and the subconscious. For him it becomes the bleeding-edge of art and subconscious melded together, with an active envisioning of the interactive nature of input in the form of colors and shapes, with the brain and the subconscious. What remains crucial for Murari holding great valence is not what the painting “represents” but the schema of intuitive action and juxtapositions of concrete patterns in a holistic approach resulting in a convergence of brain and art or of spatial relationships, which is critical. It isn’t just art, it is mind programming through through subconscious energy. And that is what makes his abstraction the most powerful force unleashed by the creative mind. By essentialising emotions within the realm of feelings, his formal elements particularly the colours, lines and textures reinforce the naturalness of emotional universalism. Emotional displays for Murari are more than physiological reactions and hence locally constructed. It is this construction, localized within his subconscious that dictates the visual language of abstraction for him. His works are free wheeling and they emerge as either organic or structured or geometric. They appear playful but underpinning that playfulness are his volatile feelings and emotions. Says the artist, “My abstractions are the representations of the darker side of my life. By darker side the implications for me is towards the so called ‘untold’ feelings and emotions that remain truly private and fortified within me but find an outlet through my paintings. So after the painting is finished after three or four hours of battling, a peace descends on me and there is a feeling of happiness and contentment”. A glance at his works show residues of his father Bhaskaran’s style particularly the decorative dots, playful short strokes and the flying curves that manifest and hallmarks his works. Moving beyond and transcending the influences, his works are evocative of prose, poetry, architecture and musical rhythm. He thus traverses the wide gamut through his colour loaded brush that metamorphoses as an artistic journey through which the process becomes catharthic. The abstractions of Murari thus mark the journey of his soul. That is, he leaves the trace of his feelings and emotions through the brushmarks and etched strokes. His abstractions are contingent on the mood and his state of mind. And it is therefore not surprising to read a distinct pattern in his canvases. The pattern I reference is his engagement with lines, colours and textures that evolve into a characterization with three different variables, namely canvases that are almost architectonic; structured with horizontals and vertical lines; the free curvilinear and circular organic forms and shapes and the almost imperceptible blend of colours and tones with rich textures in muted hues. Murari’s subconscious continues to carry the regimented exercises of drawing faultless straight lines demanded by Dhanapal, which translates into his canvases as a structured grid. Perhaps this set of works made no serious demands on his sensibility as the lines gently emerged from his brush in an array of colours to settle in a disciplined manner on the surface. The grid establishes with fluidity and easy grace and from here Murari playfully etches his emotions with textures that are equally tactile. The process of creation for Murari remains intensely vibrant completely absorbed with his canvas and in total communion with his colours. The organic abstracts of Murari reveal his emotions and sentiments at another level. Perhaps the coiled tensions of his highly target oriented job finds precipitation through curves, curlicues and spirals into a calming, soothing, comforting tranquil space of his canvas. This vocabulary is perhaps Murari’s stress buster, which is further reinforced with bright orange against a background of black or van dyck brown. The third category of his abstraction marks his spiritual quest when the brush is on a journey when major hurdles and burdens have been crossed and deposited. These works of Murari mark his maturity in the handling of his colours and its values. Murari’s works, explores a subconscious realm without reference to the outside world. His abstractions are located within a subliminal paradigm which is within the artist and his experiences, signifying layers of concealed emotions which communicate silently to his canvases. Those silent words are audible only to the artist and remain vibrantly charged as they find a release from his inner being. The artist’s imagery therefore is tethered in his subconscious, scripting the romance of spatial dynamism. It also reflects the sensuality and physicality of textures, situated as he is within a metropolitan urban culture. His colours are intensely dynamic or its polarity contemplative. Abstraction affords Murari the freedom to present his ideas without being constrained to what he visually sees, allows an articulate play with abstract ideas of colour and form. It allows him the means, by which he creates and invents wonderful new and exciting images. It becomes his salient human expression. It endeavors to delve into the far reaches of the human soul and present it to others. Good abstract art is never an accident. It is carefully developed and expertly orchestrated. Born in December of 1978, Murari Has been studying art books, galleries and practising paintings in Acrylics & oils for the last 15 years Murari lives and works in Chennai - India
Scripted by: Ms. Ashrafi S. Bhagat. M.A., M. Phil., PH.D., is the Head, Department of Fine Arts, Stella Maris College, Chennai. She is an Art Historian and an art critic and writes on modern and contemporary art.