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| Manoj Vyloor in a recent conversation with Gigi Scaria through email (October 2007). |
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Gigi: Since the last five or six years our interaction has been constant and we have had many layers of discussion regarding issues related to the very act of art practice as well as on contemporary art in general. Many times we have understood each other very well and also agreed upon certain issues/situations that have commonly affected us both, though we live in two extremely (culturally and geographically)different cities.
How much of these culturally diverse and politically contradictory spaces in which we operate have influenced you to formulate your present set of works? |
Manoj: It is true that we live in different situations, both culturally and politically, but the current flux of worldly happenings and events bring us closer in contexts. You know that I am pointing out the commonly experienced reality of globalization, neo-colonialisms, engineered invasions and turmoils, the market economy and private takeover of public spaces. I may sound a bit pessimistic that these situations have largely uprooted and displaced us whether we are in Delhi or in Trivandrum. Artists, like all other categories of people, are looking for a newer integrity - mentally, socially, culturally and politically. Even the kind of interaction that took place between us during the past years was possible because of a newer situation that was arising in this country, like elsewhere, with regards to the art practices, social discourses and cultural amity.
Regarding myself, I am as distanced from the life and happenings around me in Kerala as you may be in Delhi. This gives me a moveable space to surf deeper into the fabric of life here. I won’t claim that my recent set of works are byproducts of my interactions with this society but they, of course, set strange relations with what me and others experience. There is an ongoing debate on global forces, - particularly the developed nations with a backup of MNCs and Corporate tycoons - trying to infiltrate even into the systems of local administration in order to manipulate and confirm their participation in pursuit of profits with disregard to the needs and aspirations of the people living here. Media, both print and electronic, seems to churn further and utter confusion persists among citizens. In such a situation exploitations and injustices are at their heights. If I commit to say ‘generally’ I have this opinion that people of this state are getting confused and have started losing their focus on development and related issues. My works might be seeking attention to such a situation, but discreetly. |
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Gigi:I could observe predominantly two different sets of thought processes colliding in your “frame” most of the time. One section is very much equipped with an art historical reference on one side and the other section brings into the frame “a practice of every day life” which obviously comes from the classroom of a teacher. I would still doubt this source as a teaching position; I can equally claim and understand it as a student’s perspective as well. Could you explain little more about these “life study classes”? |
| Manoj : I must remind you at once that the traditional mode of learning and teaching is no more except in very rare cases. I am a learner/facilitator who would like to form peer groups under the hub of the institution. It is on such a premise that my works are gathering 'art historical' and 'historical' references, including influences. My references are also the influences that I am not able to avoid and that which may need some scrutiny. Working in my College the library is a rich source for solving problems related to the imageries, historicity and the practice of painting. I often turn to images and artefacts from art history to arrive at an image. Still, my need is to make something that speaks of my feelings towards the life I perceive. It is here that I take history, sometimes even dragging it into my work. My recent works have much in common with 'life study classes' in that I make models pose for my paintings or utilize models from master's works. I enjoy this process and they create an energy to work out images, mostly figures. I tried a project for my students to make model studies and then to transform the study into a premeditated, organized composition. The students did not take much interest in this but I ended up doing more and more such works. So this has become a method with me even though it produces discomfort and requires painstaking effort. Anyway, I get satisfying images and ideas to work ahead which, I think, is more important. |
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| Gigi : One thing you always try to bring into the surface is the painstakingly worked out details of an outer-space, - a space which you always say you enjoy a lot while in the process of making. I felt many times that you are deliberately hiding something when you spread so many details. Was it like saying something else when you actually wanted to say something completely different? |
| Manoj : Hiding and revealing has always been a skill of artists. I think hiding ones drawbacks is ever held as a craft just like revealing ones virtuosity. You must be referring to a few works where I have worked out a background with images of certain cosmic bodies and events against a contrasting black and white image on the foreground. In those works I wanted to bring a contradiction between a larger (cosmic) world and a very small, insignificant (local) human figure. In the painting both these aspects appear inversed and therefore the title 'Inverse Proportion' was given. My current two works (almost a diptych) which is being shown are a continuation of the same design. Here too the background has scattered heavenly bodies, stardust, trails left by a comet, or an exploding nebula etc. My strategy has been to spread the content into all the possible spaces within the painting. It is a kind of dissemination, one can say. This should also be able to convey the displacements I feel in my life both psychologically and physically. |
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| Gigi : The monuments of history as well as the monuments of art history walk parallel in many of your works. Somehow you are trying to put a halt on these walks while positioning your "subject" against this back drop. In an interesting twist your subject has become an object and takes part in this side walk as another monument. Is it deliberate? |
| Manoj : : I like your observation. Monuments catch the ire of conflicting groups in the world and are the most vulnerable victims of hatred. They are being constantly put under trial by both progressive and conservative societies. In both the works 'Monument of Uneasiness' and 'Thinker: a model reviews' the figure of the model is critically witnessing the famous monumental sculpture in a landscape thick with other historic monuments like the WTC twin towers and the citadel of Uruk (Iraq). My attempt was to create a historic time that transcends the physical time in order to speak out my view of the contemporary issues of human civilization. Hence, the model/figure becomes a part of the monument. So I would say it is a natural effort by me but realizable only in a deliberate attempt or procedure. |
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| Gigi : Memory works in many levels in a creative process. I remember our old Trivandrum days where we used to spend most of our time in film festivals. Your "Sans frontiers: a memo" arrest a film still from Ivan's Child hood by Tarkovsky. It appears to me as an emotionally charged moment separated from the rest of the movie as a matter of choice recreated /decorated by you. Somehow it reminds me of someone who finds his childhood friends group photograph and enlarges his dearest friend's portrait from the group. |
| Manoj : Even till today film has been the most engaging art form that I have experienced. As a student, several films, their visuals and music, had greatly inspired me to render images in my paintings. Here, too, I attempt to recreate an intimate moment in Ivan's Childhood with my necessity to tell about the value of love in difficult times; a value so often lost and which needs to be reminded as an antidote to the cruelties and wickedness of world current affairs. This film-still is the most genuine and sincere image I have ever seen and so there was no need to think for another image to project in my painting. This is also a way I could pay my homage to Tarkovsky and realise the true value of remembrance. How can we ever pass this scene in the movie without tears in our eyes! |
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| Gigi : Love, lust and nostalgia come in your works as a theme with stability. Solace: a memo reminds me of a future which is apprehensive and unknown, yet daunting. What exactly compelled you to choose these particular film stills when you have a choice of a million movies in front of you? |
| Manoj : In 'Solace: a memo' I have quoted from the last scene of the film 'L'Avventura' by Antonioni, another film maker I love most. In the movie it is a tense scene where the protagonists confess their real inner emotions ( like love, lust and nostalgia) by granting pardon to their humane 'sins' and console each other through an electrifying touch, which is the most intimate part of the film. What could be a better reference for a painting in which I try to quote the feeling of comfort in love and fulfillment. I feel the world loses its human focus when it is overcome with prejudices; the desire for love is the only solution I can ever think of. The protagonists in the painting are lonely, yet comfortably together and they are also deep in contemplation of a spectacular comet heralding a 'daunting future'; - a future of true understanding. (And) so happens this work. |
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| Gigi : The structure of your paintings is built upon human gestures, characters and an understanding of an "emotional cosmos", a cosmos which you build to protect your own characters. Could you explain a bit more about this mental process where you are deeply entangled with a haunting vision of the universe? |
| Manoj : Most of the images in my painting chances upon me and I discover them in dreams, not during sleep, but while watching a movie, or while listening to a piece of music or even while reading or looking at photographs, pictures etc. My interest in pure sciences keep me imagining strange things like a structure of the cosmos, patterns in nature and sequential movements in fluids. I am deeply interested in the science of 'Chaos' and I conform to the several theories I have read about this. But still, I am also terrified by the concepts in Chaos theory and often get mentally disturbed and become pessimistic. I now see this life as a strange entanglement of all/any sorts and try to read the infinite possibility of combinations and permutations in the physical and psychological existence. I am trying hard to put all these things I perceive into my paintings. |
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| Gigi : Realities of extremely different nature collide in many of your works. But an observer may not be able to identify a geographical location or a political backdrop of a place in which you are based. This is not at all a demand according to me but I am sure you will have many things to say in response. |
| Manoj : I think I am getting constantly displaced. Only a trace of the desire to become rooted remains within me, that too discreetly. I am basically dealing with images, mostly metaphorical. Painting for me is a construction where I design topographical features, build a structure of cohesive, yet individual, images and articulate a history and time to my logic and the logic of my illogicality. I think I am more often close to the surrealists, but with a longing for realism. Contradictory perceptions on life keep me busy, charged with curiosity to be more nearer to Truth. I understand that my works are not easy to decipher for a person who may be searching for traces of a geographical location or a political ground upon which to project me. I am a romantic who desires to break barriers of cultures and civilizations and to be more human. So a language of pastiche suits me and, therefore, the difficulty in identifying my ground. Work, for me, is a good arena to learn more about life. Which I do when I look at other's works. |
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