Jain Spirit 1999 10 No 02

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 30

HARMONY ON CANVAS The Art of Ravi Paranjape
In July 1999, the Meghraj Art
Gallery in London hosted an exhibition of Mr. Paranjape's unique art. He talks to Jain Spirit about his techniques and inspiration.
I have been interested in art from a very young age. My father, although he was not a painter professionally, was pretty good at drawing and painting. He was a poet and a writer and was very close to a famous kannada scholar and writer. My mother was also a very good artist as far as embroidery was concerned. So you can trace that in my work, where at times I have tried to weave carpets with paints and brushes. In my adult life I was working in advertising and publications. Offset printing is done in terms of dots, so if yellow dots are printed and blue dots are printed on that you get green; so this particular technology had a great effect on my painting.
What is central to my art is the spirit of harmony. When we first see a painting, what meets our eye is the subject matter, but around the subject matter there are so many other relationships, for example, of one colour with the other or the colour next to that. There are different forms and positive and negative spaces also. For instance, if I draw a figure, that is a positive form that I have drawn and what remains now is the negative space. So we try to create a plane between a positive space and a negative space to ensure harmony. So basically harmony is the product of good composition. I feel that the spirit of harmony is something which is universal. So many quarrels take place, even at home, at work, at the national level, international level, so the first thing that I think the whole
world is trying to do is to achieve harmony. Why did Jainism take place at all in India? Because whatever the kind of religion existing before that was not fulfilling certain things. Mahavir preached and practised harmony at the social level. All these great painters from the Western world of the late 19th century and early 20th century focus on harmony. There are various colours, various lines, various forms and the whole painting was the harmony of all of these elements. The subject was often a pretext for the creation of harmony.
The actual choice of subjects comes from my close quarters: the town that I live in or the villages around my town. I have a habit of placing a possible painting in the subject that I observe. When I look at a thing I look at it in terms of a painting. When I see an interesting subject, I immediately make a note of that in my sketchbook: the form and colour and the source of inspiration for that. This becomes the nucleus of my painting and soon when I go home I make a small sketch in colour, and then I develop that further as a piece of harmony. I am greatly inspired by Indian classical music. I have not studied it as such but I do not leave out any programme of music that is coming up in the town and my aim always is to make my painting appear like a composer in a particular mood.
Looking at things in an artistic manner develops ones aesthetics - your ability to decide which is good and which is bad, which promotes harmony and which doesn't, so that ability gets sharpened. I do not have to go to a spot and paint. Some paintings are inspired by seeing something and others are the
ART
Paranjape painting "The Potter's Dream" Opposite page: Floral Melody - Parajape 1999
October
expression of my aesthetics. Primarily in my work I use two media, acrylic and oil paints and watercolours and there are some drawings in colour pencils. Some artists work with an emphasis on toning relationships - that is, light tone and dark tone - bring this all together and create an image. My style is more line-oriented - that is, drawing-oriented - that means an emphasis on drawing and not so much on tone. Each medium has got its advantages and its problems. For instance, if one uses oil colours, there are a few things that you have to do as a first stage. One needs to use thin colour in the beginning and as you go on you need a great deal of discipline. However, acrylics dry really fast; so in ten minutes time they are totally dry. Therefore, to mix two shades you have to do it very quickly. But for my drawingoriented style this comes very handy.
December 1999 ⚫ Jain Spirit 29