Artist Manjunath Kamath was inspired by miniature paintings, terracotta sculptures and artefacts he has been collecting since his childhood to create artworks that are a satire on the artificial world we are living in today. He speaks to Divya Kaushik
With multiple heads of different forms, shapes and structures, it looks like some celestial being barely able to stand. This terracotta sculpture titled Thousand of Me’s bears a stark resemblance to ancient terracotta artworks and is inspired by the Vishwaroopa avatar of lord Krishna. Its title is taken from the famous quote by poet Rumi, “I wonder from these thousand of ‘me’s’, which one am I.” Artist Manjunath Kamath created various small terracotta faces and joined them together with cement to form this sculpture which explains that today human beings have to role play so much in real life that their identities are lost. “Everything that we say begins and ends with ‘I’, so this artwork is a satire on a present human condition where we have to introspect to know our true identities,” says Kamath.
Wit and satire have been the inherent part of Kamath’s works and this time he has been inspired greatly by the ancient structures to package this wit and satire. In fact, he says, one of the reasons of choosing his childhood collectibles as an inspiration was that he wanted to present how we are losing the connect with our roots. “Since my childhood I am interested in collecting artefacts. I have a great fascination for traditional classical sculpture and paintings and I still remember that I spent hours looking at those sculptures in temple chariots and on walls. The temples and churches are like art museums for me, and that was how I was introduced to art. I have spent hours with local craftsmen watching them make idols of gods and goddesses. Eventually, I even started collecting classical sculptures and paintings like ritual masks, wooden and metal sculptures, parts of temple chariots, old terracotta sculptures. It was natural then that I would want to bring the aesthetics of this classical style into my works but interpret them on my own terms. Since the last five years I have been working on these works that take an inspiration from whatever I have collected so far. These artworks reflect how artificial is the world that we are living in today. The sense of aesthetics has changed in such a way that our ancient craft and techniques is nowhere to be seen. For an example, earlier the character of a town or a city was reflected in its marketplaces, there used to be different small markets specialising in different things, but today all we have are supermarkets with everything selling under one roof. Our cities look all the same and even human beings I see today are so full of themselves or are so busy pretending that they are no more their real selves. This exhibition is an attempt to reconnect to our roots,” explains Kamath.
Kamath shares many stories with his images but his narratives are altered and adjusted constantly, adapting fluidly as per the environment they are narrated in. As a visual artist, Kamath feels impelled to regularly reinvent his method of storytelling. By relentlessly working on his articulation and modernising his techniques, the artist continuously updates his visual vocabulary. Even the medium he chooses has changed over time. For instance, for his last show of sculptures titled Collective Nouns in 2011, he had shown large fiberglass and wooden sculptures. “I started to dislike fiber as a medium as it’s too synthetic to work with. I found that clay was where my work did not lose its details as we don’t need to mould and cast in this medium. Also I have always had a great fascination for terracotta sculptures for its earthy nature and fragility. Through terracotta artefacts, we trace the old Indus civilisation where maximum artefacts and utensils were found,” shares Kamath.
One of his works, Urdwalingakaratalamalaka, started with the reference from Urdwalinga Shiva, which is a historical sculpture from 18th century Badami temple. “I carved till the torso of the standing Shiva by arranging the broken pieces. It’s a kind of a mismatch situation, similar to when a historian joins broken sculptures found in excavations. It’s like re-writing history, a metaphor for the present situation where history has been manipulated according to different ideologies and belief,” says Kamath.
Apart from sculptures, Kamath is also showing paper works which include 30 small drawings, nine Indian miniature-styled paper works and 15 gold leaf portraits drawing with reference from the Buddhist Thangka paintings.