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A Diary that cries for exposure
Why does an artist maintain a diary – a day-to-day record of events, that is, what all he feels or does, or what all happens to him during the day? The reason for it may not be a single one. There may be many factors that impel one to maintain a diary. I on my part, feel that writing a diary is a way of reflecting over the events of the day, besides keeping a record. A mere record might be dull and dry. But a reflective approach could be soulful. An artist, writer or poet are generally concerned with the emotional part of their lives. Therefore, while an average person, not so emotionally oriented, might let go things that impact him but do not touch him deeply, an artist or writer might be inwardly compelled to record his feelings and reactions that have a bearing on his emotional life on a day-to-day basis.
I am herein putting forth some pages of my diary with the intention of sharing with my fellow men, particularly, those in the field of art, so that a part of my “self”, which is generally not reveated through my work, could be accessed through my daily jottings though I know that it is a difficult task, because an artist is not a writer who has a good command on his language and is adept in the art of communication. But even given the handicap, there are certain things that surely cry for communication and compel one to
pick up the pen.
So here is a window on my diarying. I hope my readers get me right and straight.
Hemraj
17.04.2001 For my work “Untitled”
I tried to go for effect, putting three canvases side by side to measure 36”x48”. This effort succeeded. Of course, I first questioned as to what was the rationale for it. I could use a single canvas of the same size (36”x48”). However, I felt that something in me was prompling me to go for a triptych. I therefore went on doing what my promptings were and the painting survived after completion. Among the three canvases, line paintings over two of them are supporting the combined image. And now when I look at it again, I find that without the line drawing the work doesn’t click at all. But it took an bit of struggle with the inner voice and my brush to complete the work. But it came up in the end and my mind was rested. There was a ray of light at the end of the tunnel. Like a good memory – the memory of some near or dear one, even when we have not encountered such a person. The painting too got the matching blue and black hues. It’s therefore pretty cool in its feel and resembles a melody created in utter desolation. It’s like the Chinese meditative music which compels you to go deep into meditation.
Thursday-19.01.2006
I made two small drawings while in the school premises. I used colours too. I created in all four drawings. I liked one of the yellow hued one as the best. Though it was created last. I gave it finishing touches with a colored piece of cloth.
There was 5x5 ft. canvas in the studio which I painted with graphic colours. But I couldn’t complete it.
Friday- 20.01.2006
In the school my smaller sketch-book got filled up. So I had brought a larger one from home. I will experiment with acrylic colours on it. I therefore took a sketching paper and put it on the board, securing it with a scotch tape. Then I created a colour drawing. I began it with the word “Rama”. But it didn’t come up to my expectation. I felt that the Pabyo brand acrylic colours were not up to the mark. Their coverage was not proper. That’s why I couldn’t achieve good results. But I wanted to work on the same on the canvas in the studio too. Suddenly, one of my canvases, which had not much approval rating from me, caught my eye and I started reworking on it. I thought it will brighten up with application of red. But when I took out the colour, I found that the linsid oil bottle was empty. I came out to find if Kishor Shinde was there. But his studio was locked. But Jyoti’s Studio was open.
So I borrowed some linseeds. When I put red on my canvas I got so absorbed in working it that I couldn’t feel when the painting got completed. I left it ‘Untitled’.
Saturday-21.01.2006
I couldn’t do any work today. I will probally complete it on Monday. For Sunday is for family only.
But it being a Saturday, I have most of my periods vacant in the school schedule. However, I can’t work because I haven’t got the requisite medium. Of course, everything is there on my table. But the time just went by without me doing anything.
When I came to Garhi, I placed my things in my studio. Eased myself and entered Sabia’s Studio. She had promised me lunch today. But I found M. K. Puri and another girl Wajda already there. They had waited for me Mr. Puri told me. Then they had the lunch. Sabia pulled out a small table. (a stool in fact, which was a little broader then the palm suggested that I put a newspaper on it. I then went to my studio to get it. Sabia had brought Nihari from her home, which tested pretty good. However, I had toothache since last night which prevented me from eating sumptuously.
In the evening I got my teeth examined by Dr. Kalra. He diagnosed infection of the root-canal. He advised a course of treatment. Back in the Studio I was writing my diary when Sabia came in and said that she was going out to have tea with a friend.
Wed-25.01.2006
Varnish
Paraloid Crystal Form
Mix with Toluene – Gallery 88
BEVA – (LASCAUX) – for lining.
Unititled – 16 : 10’x5’
After 20 days almost I have applied yellow ochre as base on the canvas. But as I was doing it, the Garhi festival, which was going on, drew me to it. I came down, leaving the work half way. I wished to listen to the Ragini music. But I didn’t feel things engaged me there. So I came back to my studio and completed my yellow ochre base application. Then left it to dry. (it will take four to five days at least).
Thursday- 26.01.2006
The studio has been white-washed. Everything looked spic-and-span. I drew something over the yellow ochre base with lamp block. The drawing brightened up. I left it there for two days. I would now try to provide depth to it with lamp black again. It will enhance the effect further. I will then work on it to see what I could achieve there.
Monday-15.02.2006
I didn’t do any specific work today. Turned a few pages of some of the books and magazines in the studio – “Art India” particularly. I admired one of F.N. Souza’s paintings reproduced in the magazine. Wow!” I said. “what a painting.”
Today I delivered four of my works to Delhi Art Gallery. All of them are Untitled (only numbered as 12, 13, 14 and 15). All of these are oils and in large format I think I have innovated in these paintings, because I feel the negative spaces in my paintings are becoming numerous. The Chinese too did the same thing, I observed. Probably, because of my focus on space, I am trying to emphasize the vastness of space – space that is within and without…. Without beginning and end. Perhaps, because of this sensitivity towards space I am having more of “negative spaces” in my recent works.
For this reason only, I have been regularly looking at the works of “Zen Masters” in the library of the Lilit Kala Academi at Rabindra Bhavan. These deal with negative spaces very freely. I have been feeling their impact rather strongly… that stretched out vastness…. the infinite… the stretch that extends into time, ultimately.
I have stretched a new canvas now. Let me see how it turns out in the end.
Tuesday – 24.02.2006
I feel rather strange today. Whatever forms I have evolved in my new works, I wish to go beyond them (or rather look behind them). So far, whatever forms I evolved within my works, I was looking at them only from outside. But there is an urge now to peep into them. Explore and analyse them from within. What does it look like ?…. what does it contain?…..
I have been looking at it within the picture – frame of my canvases so far. But it seems the forms I have evolved go beyond the limits of the picture confines. Many a canvases could be assimilated by these forms on the canvas. These forms seem to turn into a whole universe. In fact, they seem to be the universe itself.
Strange! Now I have an urge to look into my own body. Why?… I don’t know.
I have joined two canvas just now. What it will lead me to. I can’t figure out yet.
Wednesday – 25.03.2006
It was four PM on the 24th. There was the “Unititled-16” canvas staring at me I had whiled away some time by going over to the tea shop for a sip. However, there was no urge yet to work the canvas. I was feeling frustrated. The I suddenly got up and started working the canvas. I had drawn something earlier on it. It had dried by now. I then started applying yellow ochre on it thought the base too was of the same colour. But then what I did to the canvas and why, I myself can’t explain. (because I myself do not know it). For six hours I do not know what I did and did not. But I kept observing as to what was emerging. I enjoy the colour part. But while observing I feel I am not one but two entities. One is creating the image and the other is observing it grow. Both are independent of eachother.
By ten P.M. the painting seemed to be completed. It had a satisfying look… even pleasing. But it was yet a mini-sized one. It looked a bit incomplete, but it imparted a happy feeling at the same time.
18.04.2006
A felt like working today…
I had some smaller canvases with me. So I thought of doing them though I had been thinking of working in small format for quite some time now. However, due to various preoccupations I couldn’t begin. But today I felt an inner compulsion and I picked up the plyboard (for I often work on plyboards when I decide to work in small format). The 36”x18” canvas was spread and nailed on the board. And then I began. I applied Algerian Crimson first. It was a bad paint (from Camlin). In fact Camlin colours do not measure up to the requisite standards. There is always some dry colour in the tube, which blocks its squeezing out. But even when it is out, it becomes difficult to mix it. I have complained about it to Mr. __________, who is a senior executive in the Camlin. But to no avail. I am now thinking to stop using their products.
After the application of Algerian Crimson, I started creating a dark form on the canvas, as if something was coming out of the shadows. When that form was completed, I found it was difficult to assess it. It’s sound was no music but a sharp noise, if one had to compare. I therefore omitted certain forms in order to tone down its loudness. Some were of course turned horizontal and this re-orientation turned the form into a melody. There was movement but no rhythm. Everything was disjointed. Each form sang a different tune. Suddenly I felt that a spark was created. This worked positively.
19.04.2006
After completing one painting, I immediately took up another canvas. It’s an old piece. There was already heavy base colour applied to it. I thought I would save time by using a dried up base. But it turned out to be otherwise. I found it difficult to work on it. At times the knife got obstructed by the thick base paint. I applied fresh paint to it. I mixed light grey to the Algerian Crimson (I really do not know what all colours I mixed into it). But after it was completed, the painting had acquired a glow.
Mr. Raj Jain, ex-art educator, Chandigarh College of Art, also appreciated the work “It is quite out of the way,” he commented.
This work displays a quite dynamism – a dynamism which seems to grow in me too. A quite natural inducement, for that matter something to be savoured and remembered.
A list of parties/ people who want to have my paintings, to be delivered during the next two years:-
21.04.2006
I have strapped the next canvas to the ply board. There is only 2 inch margin left on both the sides. It seems as it the white canvas has been mounted. I stretched the canvas alright. But the palette was too full smeared of colours (it looked as if a careless person had dined over it). Every colour was mixed up (as it always happens with me and my palette. When my painting is completed, the palette looks like a true reflection of my work).
But before cleaning the palette I had to clean the brushes too. One of the brushes had too much of colour on it. I spread the entire colour on my blank canvas. The hue here was grey while on the palette it looked pretty dark. But after cleaning the palette I find that there is very little colour supply is left with me. That does not bother me or course. Because I am too hungry to paint. Anyway, whatever that be, I devour everything. In dire hunger that is justifiable.
I don’t feel well today. There is a boil in my nose which is quite painful. I can’t even touch my nose. Even my throat is paining. I don’t know why. My doctor warns me about eating fried food. I of course don’t go for it. However I think I must see the doctor one of these days. Otherwise won’t be able to work. My cholesterol level is up I must take precaution. It should normally be at 250 count. And I think mine is normal yet at 250. Even then, I must be careful.
It’s time for Rashmi, an art collector to arrive. I am of course all set to receive her. However, I am not full speed in my work. So I am waiting – both for my inspiration and of course for Rashmi.
Note: Ben Nicholson (1890 to 1920) contemporary of Henry Moore Etchlings.
19.06.2006
The new canvas is “untitled-25”. I have painted three canvases before it Nos. 22, 23, & 24. On this I have applied Le France Extra Fine (made in France) from Green medium after mixing it with Camlin’s terpentine. This application will take two to three days to dry up. Then only I will be able to work the canvas. This painting will of course be done with Le France Extra Fine colours.
In this painting I used Liquin Original (W & N Liquin is a kind of jel. which preserves the sheen of the colours used and prevents them from dripping/ turning yellow. It also drives up faster.
In this painting, in the end, I have applied red directly from the tube and on the right hand side I have signed my name with the hind side of the brush.
These paintings have a different feel. Or, to put it in other words, I have started understanding my paintings better. I could perceive a new dimension in them. Now I feel that it has become difficult to choose my colours. I could not use blue. The same old yellows, reds, nor even a choice of their dark or lighter shades neither black an white. Nor this way nor that…. Neither now or then…. Luther day hight neither morning or evening, neither masculine nor fire nor water…. I just can’t make choices.
The more I try to go after beauty, the more I got ugliness in turn. A little beauty, but a lot of ugliness. A try to go for an aesthetic approach but to no avail. When I try to grasp what is near, I am automatically flung towards the distance. I apply black, white automatically starts, spreading. If I apply colour below, the top space goes agape.
I use neither lighter nor dark hues. Neither I attend to the sides. I neither think of beauty now nor about ugliness. Neither anything big nor small…. I am placing my works somewhere midway. I use the tone of colour, but neither in excess or in paucity. It’s neither here nor there, neither near nor far. It’s just in the middle. The strings of my sitar (a stringed instrument) are neither loose nor too tight. They are just midway or else one won’t get music out them.
I don’t want to paint neither something good or something bad. If I go for one them. I will have to go more for the other. But it is good to know what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’. I of course wish to paint that which is beyond them. (or may be it is untouched by both, the good and the bad. Or may be it is the mid-way mean).
I am not drawn towards the concept of beauty nor wish to paint the beautiful. For beauty always reminds one of ugliness. There is no avoiding it. Things have their contradictions. ‘Close’ reminds one of ‘distance’. Both are interlinked and are tones of the same colour. Hence a choice is nearly impossible.
I wish to remain in a region wherein there is no conflict. For me, conflict is not conducive to painting.
24.08.2006
Abstract is a deep sleep wherein even the sleeping one is wide awake. Or it could be the other way round as well. Sleep is where there is thought, no movement. Where there is peace…. Only peace.
Abstract is a graveyard of thought. An abstract work annihilates thought. Before an abstract work the mind stands like a braked vehicle. When we confront an abstract work, our thoughts come to a stand still. This is the real sign of an abstract work. The viewer of course looks at the work, but doesn’t really look at it. He keeps thinking but really thinks nothing. It’s something like non-animation that looks like animation. He is of course present, but not really. He is there, but not really. He terds to become formless before the formless. Neither he is there nor the work he is confronting. Both, in fact, disappear, into an unseen void.
01.09.2008
My works are just death of poetry. They don’t speak. But they wade into the viewer’s mind. I have always believed that just to create images is not art. To create images is like learning words. Speech, more so poetry, is another matter. A little kid first leans to say “Ma” An aspiring artist too learns his initials. These beginnings are just beginnings. Not art.
20.09.2006
“Untitled – 33” (180x90cm)
There was a gap of about a week before I could start work again. “Untitled – 33 was the canvas that I picked up thereafter. The one week gap was almost a blank. Then the flow resumed. I had worked on this size of canvas earlier too. But a horizontal spread was something special (I have been able to culture this size too of late).
I had to work this canvas after stapling it on the ply board. Therefore I nailed it on the board on the up side. I had sumptuous supply of blue colour (ultramarine, that is) with me. So I used it for my base. The blue base appeared like a clear, pure sky. It seemed to possess everything within itself. “A lot”, I should say. Immense depth into which anyone could wade. This depth I started culturing with yellow, orange and what all… I just don’t remember. It was something like filling a puddle with stones for the purpose of crossing it.
I wanted to cross that sky. So I kept filling it with colours like the imaginary puddle with stones. But these fillings. I found, tended to rise up. But there reached a limit. Now the way is closed for further upward movement. I could surmount it. But I couldn’t go across. I therefore started removing some colours with the help of palette knife. And as I did that, the blue sky started peeping through them….. and then the beyond. However, to reach there I had to balance the lines of other colours. I removed some and I added others. And the process went on… I do not know how long (And it is rather difficult to describe).
When the painting was complete, I could see across the sky.
“Untitled – 34”
I finished this canvas just a little time earlier today. And as soon as I took the first painting off the board I put up another canvas and started working on it. This time I wished that the painting should be completed in one sitting. Because in the process of applying colour over it, the red seemed a bit dry and halting, even when it looked quite pleasing to the eye. However I didn’t react well to it. So I wished that the painting be completed, in one sitting.
In the beginning I applied ultramarine (blue) to the canvas. Of course the filling of this canvas was no different from the previous one. Even then it made some difference though both of them had ultramarine base. When the painting was completed, it had a unique, flavour. The sky did not look like the heavens, but like the sky on the earth. It seemed, to be generating sea waves. But if it sported waves, there were dying waves too. A cycle of birth and death. The feeling that I got from this painting was as if the mammoth Universe was astir within it. It seemed that there was immense depth within… today. I achieved two things that delighted me. One was the satisfactory completion of my painting, and the second was that the Air Conditioner of my car was repaired (it had been lying in a non-functional mode for quite some time). I am of course not addicted to air-conditioning because I like both the seasons and temperature extremes whether it is hot summer or chilly winter. But two days earlier when I took Kusum along, she pointed out how hot it was and that, why didn’t I get the A/c repaired. So I devoted two days for its repair. The job was done satisfactory, thank God! And it was quite a surprise, in that when I parked my car at Nehru Place, I found there was an A/c repairing shop too. It is owned by a Sikh called ‘Lucky’. And he has good young mechanics working for him. So the job was well done and at a reasonable cost too. Without the A/c my car looked quite handicapped and I thought of disposing it off at times. But the A/c restoration drove that idea out of my mind.
26.09.2006
Untitled-35 4’x4’ (oil on Canvas)
The beginning of this work was quite different. There was no base colour on it but rather diagonal lines were drawn on it in green and black. These were not thin but pretty thick-on an average two inches and in some place, three. These were well organized and coalescing into some form.
I do not know why, when I leave a canvas, it’s a complete thing – a complete painting for all practical purposes, that is. Event then, there is room for further progress. Margin to go ahead and further… till it takes me to God, so to say. That which takes one closest to divinity, is a work of art in my eyes. Less than that, it’s a craft from every point of view. And it stays there as such. However, this work (UT/35) took me where I have long longed to be. “Across” and “Beyond”, that is.
The main colour of this work was quite unfamiliar. Even the very painting was quite strange and unfamiliar. However, its colour orchestration was quite new for me (a new experience for that matter). Because its colours were almost opaque and it was very difficult to get across them. There was no depth in it. It was almost like a wall standing in the way. It didn’t allow the viewer to get a cross. On the contrary it turned him back. On this particular work I had used it like a curtain. But the image also shows a glimpse of the other side of the world. But the work is so low key that it doesn’t seem to speak. It’s voice is so low key that only those who are trained to hear soft little things from their spouses could hear it speak. As such it risked being lost in the crowd.
…. It’s such a light work that an ordinary person may even fail to notice it. It is something like not looking at anything – akin to our looking at the sky, which we see yet do not see.
This work is so light that I am not able to even sign on it. But I will have to sign it in any case, and date it. For the sake of record though at the back of it, in this case.
19.10.2006
I am at a loss. I do not yet know how to express what I have in my mind. Yet I have to. It is inescapable. Like a word that is within but could not be mouthed. I have been summoning courage, gathering my wits. But I must try in any case. I must!
What I have gathered about art – from books and hear-say – is that it is a medium of self-expression. One could say what one has to through the medium of art. But at times I feel that there is still something within which is not getting translated into images. Because what is within is only a feeling – no form, no colour, no final shape. This feeling of not being able to express what is still left unexpressed, puts me off somewhat.
Of course, when I am working I have the feeling that I am losing myself. A sort of disappearance. I am at such moments left with no feel of my body nor any other feeling. Everything becomes a big blank. A fathomless vacuum. There is nothing to talk about, nothing to express. I am lost. But there is this feeling, that I exist…. I am! This is the same about my works. They tend to say something yet they do not… They are mute. Yet their muteness tends to say something to me. Looking at them I feel that they are not bound by the picture format – the limited space – but embrace the whole universe within their ambit. They are infinite…. Without beginning or end. They seem to be on the way to expansion – in all possible dimensions and directions. Up… down…. Left and right…. And beyond.
I feel that I am not expressing any idea or ideas but expressing the expressionless.
I have always been expressing something through my works. And it has been going on for long. But then I start feeling the drain. That a vacuum has set in. It is real and makes itself felt. Thoughts and ideas seem to come to a halt. But at the same time, there is this contradictory feeling, that I am satisfied. I am at peace. But there is a nebulous cloud within… a kind of fog which has to express itself. I don’t have to do anything.
And to paint the vacuum – the gap between thoughts and ideas. To paint the gaps between words. To realize the vacuum. Make it manifest itself. Not ideas or thoughts.
17.11.2006
When I had started this work I had no idea that I would do it in red. I had oozed it out from the tube and put it on the brush. But then, something happened. Before applying it on the canvas my mind changed all of a sudden. I took another brush and put green paint on it. It was such a turn around… quite unawares. Like some unconscious feed back. The work I could have done in red now was in green, inching towards completion. But this change of hue quite baffled me. How could it have happened.
I worked this canvas rather extensively. In greens, blues and white… scraping colour at times and applying more, in layers at times. This also put one moment on to of the other. Time too got stacked into layers. I watched this piling of time. Then it – suddenly stopped. All movement ceased. There was silence all round. The passage of time had ceased. At that moment I realised that the Time factor I was in search of was now on the canvas. ‘Time’ that I was waiting for.
I sat down in the chair in-front of the painting and kept looking at it. Was it my painting? How had I done it? So little. Like?
I stayed put. Like Time in my painting. I then left it there. Without even trying to know what it was and whose voice was it.
It was such a minimized work that I myself could not understand that it was indeed a painting.
After having completed the canvas I showed it to the British artist John, then in residence, working in Garhi studios and sought his opinion. He, so far as I remember, did not express any opinion, but he liked the work.
Today I met Poonam in the Garhi Studios canteen. Painters Kalicharan and Gurdeep too were with her. I had of course dropped in for a cup of tea. She expressed her desire to visit my studio and see my new work. I of course asked her to peep in when she was free.
I showed her four of my works. After seeing then she said that my works were getting minimised. I had not thought it that way. But may be I had that in my mind somewhere. So I liked her comment.
Poonam said, that my works were like the creation of a child. Quite innocent and free. This pleased me immensely. Because I wanted that my viewer ought to forget himself or herself after he or she had confronted my work. And whatever comment should ensure, they ought to be about my work.
I do not usually attach great importance to Poonam’s comments. But at that time her comments touched me. The feeling I had about my work and which I was not able to express, she expressed it aptly.
A few days back, a social organisation called “Khushi” staged an auction which had my works too, alongwith the work of other well known artists. This work – “Untitled – 28 – 104 x 92 cm (oil on canvas) was a middling work in my opinion. It was a big event. So I too went there with my friend, Renu Daulat Singh (who probably wished to learn something from my work). She pronounces her name very clearly.
Witnessed an auction for the first time. Of course my works have found their way in auctions earlier too. But this time this work fetched such good price. Rupees eight lacs, that is. It pleased me immensely.
Tomorrow, I have to photograph four of my works. I must remember to bring my canera along otherwise my works will to taken away by Ashish without a photographic record.
Sunday – Feb. 23/2007
The Medium and the Artist
Gravity in paintings.
The smallest portion of language.
The smallest element of painting.
25.02.2008
No man-made thing could match what has been created by nature.
No man-made thing could enable us to see God.
If man could erase his own image, then alone he could match what has been created by nature.
Nothing that man has created could match the one that has not been created and exists by itself.
No creation of man could enable us to see God.
If man could crease his own image, then alone he could reach the one whom no one has created (who exists by itself).
Hemraj: An Artist of Substance.
Hemraj, who has fashioned his own idiom in the realm of modern abstract art, has created a significant space for himself by virtue of his deep preoccupation with space, colour and the real feel of what a non realistic world is. He has, more or less lived in an art environment wherein one has to create his own form and yet never become formal. Wherein one has to give an impetus for thinking without passing on a thought, theme or theory.
He has scaled the ladder, reaching a commanding position on his own. He has had no guide though he has been in the company of the finest artists of the international art-world, right from the classical European art down to the struggling modernists. He has a rich legacy and open ground to experiment, grow and give out what he thinks his inner world craves for. A feel, a tool for search and discovery.
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