Representing Mysticism as a Paradox
Review of ‘ Remembrance of Voices Past’

H. A. Anil Kumar

Under the labyrinth of constant change lies the consistency,the oneness of being, the oscillation between the past and future. H.A.Anil Kumar interacts with the hues echoing the philosophical understanding, the faith and the abstract mysticism in V.Ramesh’s paintings.

The large scale paintings of V.Ramesh, in the vast hall of NGMA, (Bengaluru) invites ‘sight’ to a ‘distance’ that cannot be covered by physical space.This is true despite most of the canvases being over-life-sized. One of his works, ‘The Woods’ diptych (2012), for instance, facilitates a metaphoric walk in the woods rather than a view of the forest. No matter how proximately one looks, these (around) 30 works refuse to reveal their surfaces like a set of showcased, white cube object-for-visualconsumption unlike a set of porcelain utensils in a window display. Ramesh has not only painted mystic poets and their essence, but also construed a way to approach them, from within the parameters and limitations of a painterly language. In other words, the artist’s design to visually translate the mystic noises of voices from the past is a three-fold-translation. These paintings, consisting of the mundane personalities, mostly depicted based on the popular imagination (Andal, Akka, Ramana Maharshi, for instance) who bridged the metaphysics with representation (spiritual outlook in the form of initially spoken and later written representations)look back at us even before we can attempt to probe it.Is Ramesh attempting to catch the paradoxical absolutism inherent not in mysticism, but in the representational politics inherent in doing so? Bhakti, for this artist, is a matter of belief. Belief surpasses any iota of selfdoubt.

Belief, for an artist, is bhakti in certain ways. When a Bhaktha, in the, form of a contemporary artist, attempts to intervene into the past, he tries to deal with the voice, which is a congregation of visual and vocal traditions. The triple-translations, from present to past, from specific media of representation to metaphysics, and between absolute faith and skepticism, are the essence of V.Ramesh’s current exhibits. While inventing a method of not-all-too-revealing canvases surfaces, towards this purpose, he opens up heartfully to the problems and possibilities of ‘remembering the voices from the past’. He even pictorially reveals the demand of his heart in his ‘Flood My Heart With Your Tender Mercy’. Doubled with an immense manual labour involved in the making of each canvas, Ramesh re-enacts the lives of those saints who perceived themselves as feminine and their Gods as males. Somehow, authorship and visual perceptions are two analogous modernist notions that are empowered to deal with these translations. In other words, losing the self like mystic poets did in the past, today can mean contesting authorship not for an aesthetic or religious purpose but for a genuine spiritual quest.