For artist Kiran Dixit Thacker, Santiniketan and its beautiful surroundings were the starting point for most of her creative activities. She will soon showcase 35 life-size sculptures, and charcoal and watercolour drawings at IHC
Sculpures of some artists are abstract but not Kiran Dixit Thacker’s. Her sculptures are a clear depiction of what she wants to say and portray. At a five-day exhibition starting on September 22 titled Chai, chai, arro chai; we want and we want more she will showcase 35 life-size sculptures and an equal number of charcoal and watercolour drawings on life studies at the Visual Arts Gallery at India Habitat Center.
The subjects of the sculptures — a dog lying on its back hoping to be lovingly scratched in the tummy, a group of village elderly playing cards and a man cycling, carrying a woman in the carrier who holds an umbrella over his head — engage the onlooker in a conversation.
Replete with canines in ecstasy, girls swaying their hips through hula-hoop sessions, protest marches in bronze, fiberglass and mild steel, Kiran’s work brims with an analytical understanding of both eastern and western life forms. The artist says most of her sculptures are about everyday activities in Santiniketan, where she lives now. Santiniketan was also where she completed her diploma in fine arts in 1969, before she moved to England and worked and lived for 30 years.
“My work is mostly figurative; all kinds of shapes and forms inspire me. Santiniketan and its beautiful surroundings have been the starting point for most of my creative activities. I am trying to catch the essence of the subject without too many frills. Simplicity of form is what I aim to achieve, and unlike the French Impressionist painter Paul Cezanne, I want to tread the path I have discovered,” says Thacker.
At the heart of this show are two huge works, Protest March and Jaler khala (playing with water) which are representations of different moods in us. The title for this has been evoked from internal experiences. “I’m forever protesting against things and I’m with people who do the same. In a very chai, chai, arro chai-like existence, I’m always questioning everything about us; questioning before accepting. It has become a way of life,” says Thaker.
This 69-year-old artist came back to Santiniketan in 2000 to re-start her career after three decades in london in the aftermath of her daughter’s death. She realised the only way out of her grief was to start work, to sculpt, paint and draw with all sincerity and passion. “This passion is my life’s sustaining force,” said Thacker, who holds a diploma in figurative sculpture from the Frink School of Sculpture. She considers Ramkinkar Baij and Binod Behari Mukherjee as her inspiration as these individuals “could keep the fire of passion for art burning in their hearts, in spite of all the problems life dished out”.