An artist of his own style, INDERJEET GROVER, along with landscape photographer FURQAN KHAN, view natural moments as a story for their canvas. CHAHAK MITTAl chats them up at Triveni Kala Sangam to understand their inspirations
So obsessed are we in documenting our lives on social media that we hardly even look at the things which are in front of us, much more beautiful and absolutely real, unlike our pretentiously sumptuous lifestyles. Yes, there are a lot of things out there waiting for our unbiased attention.
While we take out our smart phones to click colourful selfies and upload them with multiple filters and hashtags, here is an artist who uses his smart phone to click pictures of everyday lives of people which ultimately get uploaded on his painting canvas. Taking us on the Journey through shapes and shades, Inderjeet Grover and Furqan Khan present an exhibition of paintings and photographs at Triveni Kala Sangam till July 20.
Inderjeet Grover, an artist of his own style, currently Director at the North Central Zone Cultural Centre (NCZCC) at Allahabad, adores real moments and painting them with his acrylics and spatula. He paints markets, tea-sellers, rickshawalas, cities, dances and daily moments of people. The exhibition of his scrupulous paintings provokes conversations about facets of daily life, observation and imagination, ways of resurrecting cities and capturing people’s routines.
“I paint everyday moments. They interest me a lot. I generally keep clicking pictures of concerts, dance performances, places or wherever I travel to. For instance, I have painted this chaiwala (pointing towards one of his paintings of a chaiwala or a tea-seller); there is hardly anybody who’d find inspiration in such a scene to paint it. Nobody could even think of him that way,” says Inderjeet.
He walks with an eye on every minute detail, “I find inspiration from anything. Whenever I am walking or travelling, my eyes are open to see that maybe my subject is right in front of me. I look at things and feel that this could be my next composition. God has made a beautiful world and there is beauty in everything, in a face, in a moment or in an object.”
Depicting the golden ghats of Banaras, the traditional markets of Udaipur, and the archaic streets of Bengal, Inderjeet’s paintings convey a lot about ancient Indian cities and their eloquence. He tells us about how he follows an impressionist approach, inspired as he is by Van Gogh and Degas, and finds beauty in the natural scenery. “I follow impressionism. A lot of my paintings are made with a spatula.” And he doesn’t paint for money. “As long as I feel good, nothing matters. I do it for myself. ”
Inderjeet’s paintings have been exhibited in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune, Coimbatore and Chennai. He doesn’t selectively travel for paintings. “On a family vacation, rather than taking my family’s photos, I click my subjects. Sometimes, they also mind and ask me to click photos with them too (laughs). But I enjoy this. My eyes are always open, observing things and scenes. And this is very natural. I think my subjects attract me immediately and I click. Of course, I click a 100 shots and then shortlist them,” says Inderjeet.
Furqan Khan, a landscape photographer, has been trawling an equal number of years as Inderjeet to document life. “Photography is my passion and I am into it for more than 20 years. Shiresh R Karrale, an ad photographer and a celebrity portraitist from Mumbai, is my guru.”
While their art forms vary, their approach remains the same. “I always try to focus on the beauty of a place. I explore the best of the frame by playing with natural light and different angles. I believe without the play of light a photograph is just documentation and not an art piece,” says Furqan.
Unlike paintings, which mostly are a part of the painter’s imagination and observation, a photographer has more to look for before releasing the masterpiece. Khan believes that “If you want to create an art piece through a camera, you have to learn the different effects of lights and the techniques to record with the best possible angle. Sometimes you just have to wait for hours for the right kind of light. A camera has tremendous possibilities to create stunning images. You need not resort heavily on post-processing.”
Putting light on how he views the job of a photographer, he says, “Even though post processing is natural in digital, one must not forget that at the end of the day a photographer is to be judged and not the computer operator.”
The photographer has worked in ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir and in Mandu, Madhya Pradesh, capturing the beauty of the places in his books. However, he says, “The book on Mandu is close to my heart because of the opportunity it gave me to play with light and angles.”
Just as Inderjeet believes in portraying real moments, Khan adores travel and capturing real time landscapes and finds inspiration in the natural beauty of places.
Says he, “I love to travel to capture the beauty or peculiarity of a place. My effort has always been to present a landscape in its best possible mood and originality.”