The perfection in Gautam Patole’s charcoal works is evident as they look less like paintings and more like black and white pictures. The lighting effects in his paintings are a result of his experience as a photographer in the past.
One of the paintings titled I promise depicts Mahatma Gandhi in a contemplative mood rather than a happy one. “I have taken this idea from the currency notes. All notes have the signature of the bank’s governor with a line stating ‘I promise to pay the bearer so and so amount of money’. There is so much black money and corruption in our country today and it always tends to affect the common man more than anyone else. Gandhi is wondering what to promise to the common man,” says Gautam.
Another painting shows the disparity of human life in metro cities. It’s titled Life is like that. “Nowhere else in the country will you find two strikingly contrasting states such as poverty and abundance, as you do in a metro city. It’s quite sad that a set of people have enough money to buy expensive alcohol while another set of people cannot even afford bare minimum necessities such as clean water,” he says.
Gautam feels concerned for the state of artists in our country today and through his studio, he is making efforts to offer them support. He says, “I have observed that most of the artists lack basic education. They can’t talk or communicate in English, don’t have any practical experience and lack finances. So when they approach art galleries, they only humiliate themselves. I feel it is necessary to guide the artists at the college level, in a country where art refers to only a few hundred artists on whose work the galleries flourish. The new artists can’t survive if not given proper support at the right time.”
Charcoal Delights is on at Nehru Centre Art Gallery, Worli, till April 26.
