Reminiscences

A Table For Two

One yearns for freedom, a state in which artist is not locked into a style, or an exhibition is not limited to one type of imagery. A one person’s show can comprise various personalities within one individual. Or at least two, as is the case of Mohan Das’ solo at the Gallery T2F. An artist born in Shehdadpur, worked as a cinema board painter in Hyderabad Sindh, studied art at the Sindh University, Jamshoro, taught drawing and painting courses at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, lives and paints in his home/studio in Karachi.

The travel between blown up pictures of Sultan Rahi and Anjuman, to reproductions of works from the European art history, to observing modern tools of drawing, capturing, copying, and image making such as camera, computer – is the saga sighted in the art of Mohan Das. His work also reveals two streams of time. Reality of the present and reality of the past merge in his superbly rendered canvases. In his paintings one could read some other links too; between here and there, between pleasure and products, between actuality and its representation in art.

Das explores these dimensions in an intelligent way. Choice of imagery, its connection with another visual, the composition of diverse pictorial elements, and the preference for a certain light convey many messages. Actually in his art medium is the message, because the way Mohan Das has manipulated technique of oil painting, that defies the barriers and burdens of periods, movements and various labels of art history. In a true postmodernist scheme, Das approaches his imagery, as a blend; which becomes true identity and voice of the artist.

Self-portraits and photographs of artists, at their work (like Jackson Pollock dripping colours on canvas) are juxtaposed with visuals associated with them. The body of his new works, is derived from the art historical resources but is an attempt to investigate the inherent aesthetics between ages, styles, makers, perceptions and depictions.

In a sense his paintings belong to the multitude of human expression and creativity. Mohan Das attempts to extend the narrative of old masters and modern stars, through an extraordinarily built language. These elaborations are unusual, uncanny and unpredictable, hence the power of images, created by Das.

One feels that in his latest and the best series of works, the artist has revisited his earlier training of cinema painting, in which reality and fantasy is stitched to produce a new and exciting entity. In the paintings by Mohan Das the reality turns remarkable and the fantasy becomes fantastic.

– Quddus Mirza