For artist SHOMBIT SENGUPTA, human gestures are not at all homogeneous but very different in India due to the society being extremely heterogeneous. However, the creation of Gesturism Art has clearly come from his French influence and inspiration. He speaks to Kritika Dua about his Indo-French grammar
How did you manage to create a new art form that is Gesturism ArtIJ Take us through the process.
After the onset of civilisation, documentation and preservation of society was done through the written mode rather than through oral practice. There is a concept that’s currently running through my paintings which instantly communicates that the artwork is mine. This facilitates viewers, art critics, writers and poets to get immersed in the subject of art beyond the canvas.
France taught me to understand the subliminal aspect of an artistic conceptual form. This invention of the conceptual form is a dimension of art I grew up with in France. From 1994, after a few big exhibitions in Paris, I started to crystallise Gesturism Art. let me pay homage to one of my professors at Ecole des Beaux Arts who implanted the seed of gesture in me. He used to say that the gestural strokes in my art were unique. He told me never to lose these gestures. So capturing movement became one of my fundamental dimensions of art. This is how Gesturism Art was born.
The French intellectual and artistic jugglery of concepts and intangibles is incomparable. In the post-modern art era since 1870, France has come up with the frame of varied artistic schools of thought which developed and supported a lot of painters. Monet first created a style that was later known as Impressionism. This became a terrific movement with many artists like Renoir, Cezanne, and Degas creating their own vision. Among other artistic schools of thought are Pointillism, Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism. In the same way I felt I could create the new vision which I called Gesturism art which is quite Western civilisation oriented.
I have co-opted the limitless gestures of all living beings from birth to death. If I was a follower of Hinduism, I may not have done this because reincarnation is a big factor of the religion. Also, I cannot ignore that human gestures are not at all homogeneous, but very different in India due to the society being extremely heterogeneous. However, the creation of Gesturism Art has clearly come from my French influence and inspiration.
What are the unique aspects of Gesturism ArtIJ
Plenty of gestures make Gesturism Art vibrant. This new ideology of painting is driven by a manifesto.
The origin of my idea of ‘désordre’ is influenced by India’s heterogeneous population with extreme diversity that results in unpredictable physical disorders in every aspect of life. It is extremely anti-Cartesian, and diametrically opposite to structured logic.
Désordre in France translates directly to a bordel in colloquial language. But I found désordre in French is more interesting than disorder in English. Désordre talks about physical disorders only whereas the word disorder in English can be used for both mental and physical conditions.
Every square metre in India has désordre due to differences in lifestyle, religion, dress, language and eating habits. Arrival and merging of migrants since ancient times from Greece, Africa, Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan, Europe and the 200 years of British colonisation in the Indian subcontinent have created this situation over time. India has never disturbed anyone from following their own beliefs. That’s why désordre is part of Indian culture where you will always find the value of inclusiveness and a smile. From my French eye I saw désordre to have incredible hidden imagination behind it. So why not make a painting style with multiple pieces of canvas that can move to ensure that my art is not staticIJ
I invited viewers to physically experience my art. Viewers can interact with my artwork to recompose it or create millions versions because each canvas can move 360 degrees. If they are curious, they can always find my original painting which has some figurative element. Collectors can regularly change the placement of each canvas to see the same painting in different perspectives.
Tell us about the theme of your recent solo exhibition at Barbizon VillageIJ What were the colour palette and techniques usedIJ
Mon ivresse de la France is a theme I started in 2008. It reflects an inner sense of my life. I travelled to France at the age of 19 from a life of poverty and disgraceful social discrimination. When you are living in a refugee camp in India, on the outskirts of a metropolitan with no money, it is an unimaginable struggle to achieve anything in life.
France may have many political divisions and people from different parts of the hexagon-shaped country have different aspirations but to be honest, I can boldly say that they have all embraced me. France has contributed to my life in every way. For me, it is a country of inspiration in every breath. I am an immigrant Frenchman of Indian origin. French people have always considered me a part of their society. The acceptance I have experienced has been marvellous.
The theme can be extended from covering society, objects and nature to even writers and poets I love, such as Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud and Proust. let me capture their impact on my soul through four paintings that are also in the exhibition:
Evil Blossom is a painting where I imagine the inner sense of Charles Baudelaire. A whole generation of poets were influenced by Baudelaire who had created the phrase modernity, that is and will always be timeless. I enjoyed his book les Fleurs du mal which expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrialising Paris during the 19th century. His idea that art has the responsibility to capture the living experience really inspires me.
Thorny love portrays Paul Verlaine’s tragic jealousy. Verlaine is another mystery for me. His passionate rage was so high that he could pick up a gun to shoot his lover. I like his association with the movement of skepticism, the way he delights in perversion and his crude humour. But what I truly endorse is Verlaine’s belief in the superiority of human creativity over logic and the natural world.
Devil’s Time is my admiration of Arthur Rimbaud. He was unsophisticated, perverse, a personality of rupture in every sense. He founded French Symbolism and influenced Dadaists, Surrealists, modernist literature and musicians with his powerful book of poems called A Season in Hell. Rimbaud’s subliminal and highly suggestive poems resonate well with my imaginative strokes of Gesturism Art.
Remembrance is my painting of Marcel Proust. It recalls his famous episode of the Madeleine that triggers a flashback of memories. Among my favourite books is In Search of lost Time on the theme of involuntary memory. The 20th century classic explores sensory experiences such as sights, sounds and smells. This attracts me because they are so much a part of the limitless creative gestures that my Gesturism current of paintings bring up with an explosion of colours.
What was your thought process behind creating the artwork Mystic IslandIJ
I have visited Sardinia several times. When I am there at Nuchis, I always go to the tomb of the giants of Pascaredda dating back to 1700-1400 BC, the mid to late Bronze Age. The oldest olive tree on earth is in nearby luras. In Pascaredda, a young man was intently watching the tiny grave made of dolmen-orthostatic style. He was wearing colourful sports shoes. It immediately struck me, “Four thousand years till today, what a rhapsody!” I returned to paint a désordre harmony piece called Sardinian Rhapsody. So, Sardinia inspired me to create a theme called Mystic Island on which I am continuing to paint different canvases till today.
I have a habit of re-visiting a place over and over again. It’s really important for me to experience the unexpected and to get surprised. I don’t like to take touristic travels to see and click photos. I first try to understand social nuances of different countries from the many friends across the world to season my imagination.
I love to observe the colour application method in different societies around the world. The inner meaning of a country’s civilisation and philosophy comes through in the way they apply colour in their everyday cultural activities. This is also a proof that art had started before civilisation came into being. So, art has given liberty of expression to different societies in the world.
How do you feel about your journey so far and the roadblocks you overcameIJ
I am a bi-cultural, Franco-Indian painter. I grew up in Paris from the age of 19, grappling contradictory cultures as I associated with the art and education environment in France. I learnt Western fine arts from the French schools of art. From my country of origin, I inherited my irreverent usage of Indian colours. India’s social heterogeneity leads to visible physical désordre in every aspect which uniquely creates a feeling of inclusiveness. Ingrained in my paintings is this feeling of inclusiveness, love and courage for humanity irrespective of religion or multi-society cultural behaviour, and my passion for the beauty and elegance of women in every part of the world. India’s highly treasured values of inclusiveness and compassion are what I like. I believe we can always overcome whatever roadblocks appear in any journey when we are anchored in the values we live by.
What are the themes you have played within your exhibits over the yearsIJ
Gesturism art is a genre which is not restrictive, it is universal. It gives a structure of consistency to my art which allows viewers to identify the genre easily. It gives the freedom to work in different themes covering a vast array of subjects in different parts of the world. Mon Ivresse de la France narrates France, Mystic Island talks of Sardinia, Ville Enigmatique is about India. Other themes are universal such as Beauty of Curves, Colour of Dance, Breeze of Desire among others.
What are your aesthetics and where do you seek inspiration fromIJ
I love the French values of secularism and freedom of expression. I don’t think I could have created this art current without living in France. From 1973, I have permanently lived 32 years of my youth in France. Then on my wife’s insistence I went to stay in India to discover the India I did not know in my poverty-stricken time upto my teens. This move helped me to get my new irreverent Indian colour palette. Now I understand India better from my French perspective.
While creating my French style paintings, I started researching on how my art can have an “uncontrolled colour bath” by being completely impromptu in action. India has liberty of colour like no other country. There is no dogmatism in Indian culture between good and bad as in Western society. Differences of religion, language, food, culture, way of living and dressing radically change almost every 500 kms among India’s 1.2 billion population. So, everybody has the freedom to use any colour for any occasion. This results in Indian colours being seen to be irreverent. I have taken this as my colour palette, so irreverent Indian colours rule over my art.
I found that my native country responded to my urge of rebellious application of colour. I discovered that 80 per cent Indians haphazardly and freely apply colours in their everyday life. Poverty made people increase their use of colours. While interacting with the underprivileged now, I came to know that their colourful way of living symbolises dignity of their identity; less colour would mean being washed out. I inherited this mentality of abundant colour in my imagination and work.
What are your views on fine art as value addition and sustainable artIJ
Fine art that’s memorable represents the vision of an artist, something totally new which people have never experienced. It is very different from all existing art of the past. Fine art requires skill and vision where skill drives execution excellence and vision of newness. The consistency of the artwork makes it sustainable art.
Fine arts can associate with a conceptual form, which can eventually become an art movement that is followed by other artists. This is the ultimate to becoming sustainable art.