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Jean-Claude Carrière's lead essay in the recently released book on Sujata Bajaj entitled L'Ordre du monde and published by Albin Michel in France , refers to her work in terms of the dharma of a painter. His encounter with the artist and her work soon after his experience of India working with Peter Brook on the Mahabharata underlines much of the textual content that appears in the book while its spirit emanates from the form and palette of Sujata Bajaj's large body of work featured in the 192 page beautifully illustrated hard bound book. With four releases in quick succession at Paris , Mumbai, Delhi and London , a solo show of her work accompanied the book releases held at Tao Art Gallery in Mumbai and Palette Gallery in Delhi , while at London it is Osborne Samuel & Berkeley Square Art Gallery in association with Saffronart online, who play the host.
There is a touch of the personal together with critical analysis of the work in the two essays in the book one each by Jean-Claude Carrière and Lorette Nobe'court. The hundred reproductions of Sujata's work together with her notings featured in the book, add to the interest and understanding of her work that Jean-Claude Carrière, her first French collector suggests, makes an echo with the essence of India and its vibrant cultural ethos.
Referring to the resonance that Sujata's art makes in an interface of the ancient with the new, the textual with the painterly, he describes it as ‘harmoniously disquieting'. “A colour must come alive or else….”, writes the other contributor Lorette Nobe'court quoting Sujata, who makes things come alive in her vivid colourful work. While Jean-Claude Carrière's writing focuses on the aesthetics of her creativity Lorette Nobe'court retraces her roots and routes to analyse the inspiration and personality that shapes her art. There are vivid references to her early childhood as the youngest of five siblings and the family's strong links with the Gandhian ideology and the struggle for India 's independence. A Bachelor's and Master's in Arts and Painting from Pune University was followed by study in Paris at Ecole Nationale Superieur Des Beaux Arts and then work at Studio Claude Viseux. The mentoring by S.H.Raza in introducing her to the idea of Paris in the first place, then learning the language and about the French Art World without losing anything of the deep Indian links is described in fascinating detail as it continues to influence her aesthetic sensibility to-date.
Sujata's colourful abstract imagery spilling beyond the confines of the four sides of her canvas or paper base is described in the book in some detail. Her spontaneity marks her art sprinkled with light and darkness and inundated with geometric patterns. The text in Sanskrit from Vedas and other scriptures that has become an integral part of her art, presents a feast for the eye and the mind linking it to the cosmos. There is a profusion of improvisations in the imagery that the author describes as “…. stories, colours, movement, even smells”. The fine assimilation of the old and the new and her strong roots in indigenous philosophical thought and Vedic traditions is analyzed along side her contemporary vision. Her experimentation in different media from early monotypes to “… mixed techniques, making collages out of paper, silk, bits of rope and burnt cardboard to which she added wax, chalk, gouache, ink– in short, everything that her hand or eye came across” and more recently acrylic bring forth a juxtaposition of energy, mystery and cheerfulness often played in an abundance of bold colours predominantly reds and yellows and indigo blues with shafts of white peeping through to mark her distinctive artistic oeuvre. The illustrations beautifully reproduced in the book, some on double page spreads, high light the bold strokes and streaks, in radiant circles, triangles, and traditional signs of OM and other floating forms and fragmented text that alludes to a link between the earth and the sky as if in a ritualistic trance.
Each work reproduced in the book, some with close ups, stands as a distinct entity that arouses a different bhava or rasa , together making a cohesive series of navarasa . Her playful colours, the energy of her texture with measured use of gold leaf to add luster and spark, the passion in her composition, the beauty of her images and the seminal notations accompanying the illustrations on adjacent pages help the reader enjoy and appreciate the underlying substance of her work that she describes as “musical notations or a dance of colours”.
What I find missing in the book is a meaningful discussion around the links that her work makes with indigenous mythology or the tribal, tantaric and folk traditions of India . Also one would have liked to see something of her early working years in India , Paris and Norway following the two page spread of family photographs at the end. The text limited to 20 pages in a large volume does not seem to include sufficient critical analysis to do full justice to her work. Perhaps adding an Indian input would have brought another perspective to help make it a more comprehensive publication for an artist who is currently winning accolades both in India and internationally.
L'Ordre du monde
Sujata Bajaj
Text : Jean-Claude Carriere
Publisher: Albin Michel and Tao Art Gallery
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