These shutters are like small shrines for me: Atul Dodiya

Ahead of “Stammer in the shade” exhibition, Atul Dodiya tells us how his shutter series could mean different things in different times

Over the years, artist Atul Dodiya has moved effortlessly beyond a narrative style of depiction to explore the social milieu he inhabits, with subtle humour and even satirical slants. Through his paintings and assemblages, Dodiya engages with both political and art history as he entwines global /public memory and local/personal experience.

The upcoming solo show “Stammer in the shade” at New Delhi’s Vadehra Art Gallery has two parts – paintings in his fragmented abstract style and his shutter series. Known for creating an amalgamation of visual imagery upon the metallic surface of shutter doors taken from Delhi shop fronts, his earliest shutter works were commissioned by the Tate Modern for its Century City exhibition 2000. At that time, his shutter paintings were his response to the city-wide curfews prompted by riots in the 1990s in Mumbai.

In 2007, he reflected on his works in an interview with this writer. “Creativity earlier meant that I was a link in a long chain of art makers from the ancient to the postmodern,” stated Dodiya. “The inclinations and the obsessions have moved. Almost dramatically the earth has moved beneath my feet. As my notions of security and beauty have changed, a deluge of images has hit me.

Living in a nation seeped in poverty, maybe it’s unavoidable. Death, decay, corruption, compromise, struggle are not distant metaphors for the fall of man. These are real right here, lived with me …”

Fast forward to 2020, Dodiya’s new suite of works professes an increasing attention to a more active viewer involvement in his works. It creates an impetus for the viewer to explore deeper interpretations. “The act of looking at a work of art is complex,” states Dodiya and gives us a peek into his oeuvre.

Atul Dodiya’s “Rising” from his “Shutter series”  

Talk about the title ‘Stammer in the shade’… this was a 2005 work. Are you going back in time with one eye on the series you made in the past?

That’s right. I did a series of works titled “Stammer in the Shade”, 2005 which was part of Venice Biennale’s collateral event.

I am using the title “Stammer in the Shade” for this recent show because I like the title, it’s poetic and in a strange way it relates to 2005 series.

In that series, there was a painting hidden behind a large canvas standing on crutches. The detail of the painting i.e title, etc was on the front and the real painting was behind in the shade of a bigger canvas. Now, in this series, there are masterpieces (of Picasso, Van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Gustave Courbet, etc) in the form of photographs placed on the small shutters.

A little part of these great paintings is seen in the photographs, mostly the bottom part of the paintings. But the main motif is the frame which is empathetically seen in the centre of the photograph. The shadow of these heavy frames was my main subject.

I have learnt so much from these great artists and their art that whatever I attempt and do is just a stammering. This is the statement I want to make in this show.

This suite is a combination of dulcet still life and landscapes with the human figure in a minimalist mode. There is a passion for art and the grammar of painting. Would you like to expand on the compositional control and imagery in your works?

There are landscapes, there are abstract forms, also Saints/Monks and some mythological figures. From the great art of the past, I get a sense of freedom and feel I am allowed to do diverse things simultaneously. This has been my approach throughout my career.

How do you invite active participation from the viewer in the interpretation of your art?

Viewers see only that which they want to see, not everything which is seen. The way my freedom is important to me, the same way, I give total freedom to my viewer for interpretation, perception and also argue. There is no control over a fellow person/viewer.

The shutter series is another flashback in time. You seem to have given them a new avatar with the framed photograph added to the top almost like a mantelpiece effect in the scheme of scenography.

These shutters are like small shrines for me. They can be many things, in many ways. They can be different according to functions in times-daily grind, during a curfew they come down suddenly and forcefully. Lots of incidents and events all come into being along with the history and memory.

In terms of fragments you seem to have a Braqian echo in the manner in which you fragment your details so as to create movement in space. It’s almost as if you have gone back in time to cubist journeys of European Masters.

True, as I said, I am allowed. As an artist, I can go back in time. For an artist, I believe, there is no past, present, and future. It’s more like a river, just a flow and one is part of it. I can go back in the past, the past can come into future or present. Everything merges into each other and come up with a new experience.

(The exhibition opens at the Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi on January 28.)

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