My first bit of work after quitting my office job was a mural on the terrace of a residence in Bangalore. The surface itself was a long wall (with a metal door) and a short portion of the wall adjacent to it. The only brief provided by the owner was that the subject had to be a 'Tree of Life' in the style of Gond tribal artwork. While the surface patterning had a lot of potential, I decided to pay as little attention to this brief as possible.
My insincere interests in fractals, golden rectangles and the Fibonacci series and their relation to nature compel me to insert them covertly in a lot of my artwork, without fully knowing why. Here, the tree itself was a victim to this layer of 'meaning', with its branches splitting in a Fibonacci series radially outwards from the corner between the two walls.
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| Using rules to generate natural forms; for the opposite, go here |
Since a Tree of Life needed some lively elements, I added a bird for kicks (an Indian Roller, the state bird of Karnataka), positioned above the door so that when it was opened, the door would be a piece of art on its own. The walls were coloured in contrasting 'day/night' hues to highlight the change in direction.
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| Even the bird protested against this version |
Since the client basically wanted a 'pretty picture' done in the Gond style, they were happy enough with this.
BUT
I'm greedy for meaning, depth and other pretentious things in my artwork. The proportions of the painting reminded me of Picasso's Guernica, and I felt I had to at least attempt to inject some similar political commentary, especially given the interesting events in India in May 2014. The incumbent Congress government seemed on its way out, though matriarch Sonia Gandhi was attempting to install her ineffectual son Rahul as the next Prime Minister. Meanwhile, the Opposition BJP party's strongman Narendra Modi was seemingly winning the electoral campaign single-handedly. In the midst of this, anti-corruption activist and blink-and-miss Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal added to the chaos with his Aam Aadmi Party.
The reworked mural design contained not only this storyline, but also seemed vastly improved in terms of composition.
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| I couldn't think of a good portmanteau for bird- and election-related words here |
Though the owners know nothing of this, here are some notes, for the sake of my ego, which cannot keep a secret:
- Mr.Modi's authoritarian style of government, coupled with a bloody riot in his state during his Chief Ministership 12 years earlier, had led to critics labelling him as 'Hitlerian'; nevertheless, he seemed to be having the last laugh and his day in the sun. I incorporated both of these in the design for the rooster at the left (note the strutting swastika inspired body structure).
- The Congress mother-and-son duo formed the peahen and the peacock towards the centre; the egg-like form of the peacock referring to the popular perception of Mr.Gandhi being unable to fight his own political batttles.
- Mr.Kejriwal's owl sits silently in the night, chastened after his perceived electoral blunder of stepping down from his chief-ministership a few months earlier. His night-watchmanlike vigilance in exposing other parties' corruption was still powerful enough to consider him a contender in the elections.
The final stroke of paint was applied three weeks later, and here's the result:
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| The leaves and branch on the door were left black to separate it from the wall |
Each party's political symbol is hidden in the bird's plumage
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| I decided against painting the switchboard |
For those who came in late: Mr. Modi's party won the election; he entered office as Prime Minster of India on 26 May, 2014.
