Jain Spirit 2004 10 No 20

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

Page 56

So this is what Pavani is about. Although she now lives in Fremont, San Francisco, she was born and grew up in and around Karnataka, South India. Here she did a little bit of Indian dancing and singing which, she chirps, "most girls tend to do." In fact, I am struck by her immediate openness and eagerness to share both her art and culture with me. Pavani is a firm believer in art as a representation of the artist and the artist's intent. "It can be in the way you render a rock, or a scale if you're singing or playing an instrument, anything creative - all of these things hold a part of you." One cannot deny that her work has a feeling of warm familiarity. These are not holiday snaps on canvas, these come from something she knows, something she has seen a thousand times before. "You create things you have experienced. I mean I can look at my paintings and on some of them, like the one with the fields where people are sowing, or the harvest scenes, I can actually smell the soil. You have to have it in you," she explains, "otherwise you can't recreate that effect." Art had always been a part of her life, but it was when she moved out to San Francisco at 20 to get married and to find herself that art really found her. "And this meant that good things happened!" she brims. She signed up to a four-year course in Fine Art where she discovered her medium-painting. "I think I can safely say that when you are doing something with your hands and when you're giving so much of yourself, there is a point, whatever it is, small or large, that there is something spiritual about it. It's pure creation, there is disappointment, there is loss, there is a lot of sacrifice involved and you also achieve so much from it."
"You can take the girl out of India but you can't take India out of the girl." This is Pavani Vijay Kaushik's answer to whether she sees herself as an Indian artist or an artist who paints about India. I asked this question as I didn't know what to expect, having only seen the paintings before I saw the person, which is actually the order that Pavani prefers. "I like to let my work speak for me," she explains. "My face is not in these paintings but every stroke tells you what I've experienced and where I'm from, what I'm all about." Pavani's paintings do just that, which is useful as there are a number of conclusions I could draw from the evidence I have. The tall thirty-year-old is dressed in a sari, surrounded by an array of vegetarian samosas and kachoris, yet speaks in an accent from somewhere between South India and West Coast America. I am further confused to be meeting her at The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan Gallery in South West London. The light-filled building has an unimposing atmosphere, perfect for displaying art. It was my first visit to the gallery, which feels like an oasis amidst the busy roads around Kensington, where Pavani is exhibiting both her India and Threads series. They are a wonderful mass of thick brush strokes in all the colours of that country, depicting typical scenes: rickshaws speeding past temples, satisfied market goers trudging home and buffalo owning the streets.
In a world where art awards are given for sheep in formaldehyde or exhibiting your bedroom after a weekend on the tiles, a critic could ask: "Where is the controversy?" "What boundaries are being pushed with her quaint little scenes?" But in searching for the hidden statement, I found it there, plain to see, in the depictions of people going about their normal lives. When Pavani puts reality into a frame she gives it a little piece of the limelight. It allows us to stop and reflect because for her each moment is worth painting a picture about. And although brought up as a Hindu, Pavani feels that part of her work complies with these aspects of Jain values: humility and respect. "I grew up with a lot of Jains, I have Jain friends and I know what Jainism stands for. I am sure one idea is beauty, and it is to be found in everything," she muses. "And
HOME FROM HOME
REBECCA HOH MEETS WITH CALIFORNIAN ARTIST PAVANI KAUSHIK WHO DRAWS INSPIRATION FROM INDIA FOR HER ART