A SYNCRETIC EXPRESSIONISM: A PERSPECTIVE ON MADAN LAL’S ABSTRACT DRAWINGS

In the present series of abstract drawings, we observe his complete freedom from all traditional aesthetic values and also his inner urge to assert the boundless freedom of an artist to carve out an autonomous zone of aesthetic objects and appreciation that transcends the parameter laid down by the earlier masters. Now his mode of creation represents more a raga, a symphony or simply humming than any conscious attempt to portray the gross realities in the space-time continuum. His artistic soul soars much above such a continuum for newer and newer forms, shapes, contours and waves. No need to search for a method in his madness, no need to look for the recognized and recognizable themes or ragas in this ecstasy of the soul. It is enough if it evokes an ineffable, a nameless experience in us and keeps us enraptured and transfixed for a whole. For my part, they initially baffled me for the sheer exuberance of their creative flights, for the very euphoric celebration of the Platonic forms or ‘eidos’ inhabiting in the region of his inspired psyche. Yet we can not describe this series as either modernist or post-modernist. Rather it is a grand synthesis of both these trends. Like the modernist painters he parts company with the traditional techniques and values and like the post-modernists he is not averse to retaining the spirit of the artistic heritage of mankind. He is the last person to question the contemporary relevance of this invaluable inheritance of mankind. Madan Lal’s approach is inclusive, not exclusive. His innovations are authentic, nevertheless, his passionate attachment for the classical masterpieces are equally genuine. Keeping in view his entire artistic corpus, I can affirm confidently that his artistic motifs are truly syncretic although the modernist elements are prominent in the surface while the subtle symbolism embedded in the majority of the paintings is postmodernist in spirit. There is another synthesis at work in these drawings: that between emotive effusiveness and rational rigour or between a romanticist intensity and classical restraint. The dark shades and wild strokes represent the former motif and the bright lines wading across dark expanses along with the semi-geometrical patterns with points or dots in the middle reveal a predilection for the latter. The chiaroscuro, the interplay of light and darkness, of vacuum permeating the plenum and vice-versa characterize the present series of paintings as they have done in the case of his earlier creations. With the present series of drawings, the international reputation of Madan Lal as a pre-eminent sculptor stands bolstered by his image as an innovative painter attempting to encapsulating a wide variety of experiences from extremely mundane to intensely aesthetic and ethereal in the present series. Madan Lal’s vocation as a sculptor has always drawn upon his existential engagement in life and his spiritual encounters with Kashi, the city of joy, of perpetual celebration of life, where the boundary between worshipping and living is not visible. Creating art is like a mode of worship for Madan Lal. Perhaps he imbibes the rich symbolism involving the rites of worshipping (puja) and transmits the same to his artistic creation. Worshipping is a kind of post-modernist activity for him because he blatantly refuses to imprison life in over-zealous rational theorization. His post-modernist spirit is not delimited by the traditional activity of ‘puja’; rather it is enormously enriched and inspired. His ecstasy spreads its wings to encompass the infinite sky by shedding its gross hedonistic moorings. Thus, a queer, paradoxical undercurrent can be witnessed at the very heart of this series: the spirit of Kashi. As spirituality rises far above the world of gross objects and raw thought currents. This series crosses into the territory of transcendental aesthetic experience that urges an artist to explore or devise new modes of manipulating dots, lines, space, colour, images, vacuum and plenum. In a freewheeling chat with the artist, he shed some light on the origin of these shapes and figures. In the process of sculpting numberless forms and figures, some of these configurations emerged nebulously in his subconscious mind and almost over a decade they kept growing, rather growing upon his consciousness. A time came when they broke out of this state of quiescence and the present series was born. This process is common to most artists but what was sui generis in this case is: a professional sculptor burst forth in another genre with what I think exemplary finesse, with deft innovativeness. The more I delved into this change of medium, this new outburst of creativity appeared to me just another celebration of ecstasy that resides in his soul, in consonance with the artistic idiom of the age.
By Dr. Shashi Bhusan Mohanty