This tarot card is a symbol of the modern man who has lost faith in himself – the one who needs an external command to boost that dwindling hope and buoyancy….
But when those picturesque cards take a new shape and character in this new series of paintings by Babu Xavier, it becomes a highly colourful portrait of a black age.
The very concept of tarot card has a Western connotation and in our times it is more or less identified with the urban sensibilities which are made largely of angst and mistrust rather than faith and optimism.
Though sarcasm and black humour are nothing new in Babu’s compositions, here it takes a totally different incarnation. It is more of a world of black magic and the invisible traps.
In ‘The Nature’, the anxious faces and the nature around arouse a kind of horror in the mind of the viewer. Behind the bright colours one sees the black faces of sound and fury. Comparing it with the new ECG of the modern life – the falling graph of the ‘bull and bear fight’ – one can realize all the colours lead but to black as is evident in this new series.
And the foxes barking at the moon, with the crab in the blue waters, are not taking us to the colourful world of the folktales of merry and mirth. Rather it takes one to the rubbles of a lost civilization. And here even the sun loses its sheen and the angelic childhood loses its innocence.
It is in this world of ruins that ‘The Hangedman’ is seeking his self and ‘The Fool’ is exploring his dream. It is here ‘The Emoress’ is embarking upon a wild journey.
Yes, these are the tarot cards of disaster that open windows of the dark today to the even darker tomorrow. These are not the cards of the soothsayer’s faith but they are the cards of mistrust – the building block of the modern mind.
(Sudhakaran is a Bangalore-based journalist and art critic. Email: psudhakaran@gmail.com) |
