Artist Owais Husain has always been fascinated by the concept of ‘to speak is to disappear'. In a conversation, he tells Shrabasti Mallik that we are all born with a solid core which disintegrates over time as we begin to communicate
When you walk into the quaint environment of the Bikaner House, you will come across a darkened hall with only two pieces of art brightly illuminated. And one of them in particular caught our attention. It was a solitary trunk with a mirror inside the upper lid reflecting the image of a picture placed at below. Now, a trunk will have a different meaning for different people. But for artist Owais Husain, the youngest son of legendary painter MF Husain, it is a symbol of home and everything nostalgic.
“It is called the Harbinger trunk,” he told us, “And when I saw it for the first time, it reminded me of home because it was what I took with me to boarding school and opened it every week and get the whiff of home or may be a treat.”
The artwork, at the same time, also relates to something else that the artist has been talking about — ‘To speak is to disappear.’ “It is a whole series of work that I have done. It is almost like what you are — the core of you is solid when you are born. And over a period of time, the silence diminishes when you begin to communicate. And the more you speak, that entire essence begins to diminish and you become part of a larger entity. In Indian philosophy it is called Neeti Neeti Neeti — nothing lasts — and the whole thing of being one of many. When you are in a crowd of millions, not only do you find your loneliness, you find your solitude and your individuality. You also find yourself in context to the others around you. It is more about surrendering yourself in your search for yourself. So when you surrender yourself, you become one in a sea of endless,” he explained.
It is from this point of view that he framed the quote on the mirror — ‘In a world without hiding places you become transparent.’ He also told us about the lights and the reflection on the mirror. “The reflection and the lights, that are below the transparent picture sheet, act like a constellation, or some sort of an activity or movement. They also act like little maps in a way because when you fly over a city at night you see only lights so it’s sort of like mapping. And the entire thing worked because of the silhouette of the figure and the trees,” he added.
This installation is part of a larger collection Publica and he is glad to be a part of it. “I am extremely fascinated with engaging community with my art,” he said. The artist had in fact held a workshop at the International Institute of Art in Modi Nagar and carried back images made by the students to combine with his work in the collaborative installation called House of Cards.
The artist works with a lot of media — paint, installation, photography, sound and 3 dimensions — and he believes that the process does not involve in tampering with the purity of excelling in one medium. When we asked him about it he said, “It is all very subjective. At any point I may need to focus on one particular medium. So the priority would go on to that. It’s like an animal which is unpredictable in a way but it can be tamed if you want to. Then when it behaves in a certain way, you make it move in another way. It has got many heads, limbs, eyes and tails, and at the same time it can be malleable. I see myself handling that kind of an animal in my art,” he pointed out.
Public art has developed a lot over the few years and is is being constantly given different dimensions by various artists. Husain feels that the growth and popularity of public art is phenomenal. “But at the same time, it is ironic,” he added. “Why I say ironic is that India, with a cultural heritage of 5,000 years, has been the core essence of our very lives. It has been an integral part of our day to day living. We knew whether or not to create things which remind us of certain stations in time or history. I don’t think this exists anymore. But when we were young and we travelled long distances on train and we saw a stone painted orange we knew it was Hanuman ji. But today you have to see some hardcore paintings or you have to see something very elaborate. What is amazing is that these were simple and there was no historian or critic or education system that explored and explained to you the intricacies of that orange coloured stone. No, you associated with it and that is the whole beauty of public art and it always has been an integral part of our lives. But just that our education system has changed and along with that, so has our ability to look at simple things,” he wrapped up.
photos Pankaj Kumar