About
A voyage through jai Zharotia's paintings reveal a continuous flow of twin images; a male head in a silhouette and vase like vegetative visage, a paper boat with a feminine face for a mast and a distorted puppet horse, a chequered dress with the moon hidden in its drapery and a flower like on a stem. There is a suggestion of duality in all of Jai Zharotia's latest works.
This duality is all pervasive… it operates between the visible and the invisible, the apparent and the elusive, the conscious and unconscious. Yet, this apparent division in his works is not static, it is in a constant state of dialogue within its creative space on the one hand and with the viewer on the other. The communication is possible because Zharotia's creative process is not limited by the restraints of logic and reason. His vision is not to paint only what can be explained and understood but to also delve into the mysterious world, beyond the logical.
The element of mystery evident in his latest collection has been a continuous presence in his body of work over a period of time. This mystery surrounds not just the great metaphysical questions of existence, it is closer to the artist's personal history too. All through his life, forces beyond him compelled him to take steps which brought unanticipated changes in his life. This roll of coincidence I fate in his life convinced Zharotia that an artist's visual vocabulary has to take into account the world beyond the conscious. Thus, the duality between the experienced and the imagined becomes the crux of the artist's conceptualisation. The interaction between the two states of being leads to a series of images that come from the material world but get transformed into the metaphysical when they communicate with each other.
According to the Upnishads, a thought once created never dies. It floats in space, an omnipresent free object. When this thought connects with an appropriate action, a wish is fulfilled. It is this wish fulfilling-fantasy that is reflected in Jai Zharotia's work where an animal can talk to a flower, paper boat to a vase, a man to the moon. Not only talk but also acquire each others, attributes and forms.
At the heart of Zharotia's art is a freedom of spirit, a roohani azzaadi, that allows the artist's soul to innovate, experiment and evolve a visual vocabulary quite his own. This can be seen not only in the forms he has devised but also in his technique. His mixed media paintings on paper combine tempera and pencils with watercolours for a transparent wash.
The paintings are marked by a backdrop of almost surreal tones of two colours, with thin shadows of leaves and flowers reflected on highly textured surface. The play of light and shadow in his creations, like the subject of his works, is not confined to physical laws of light, it is playful and imaginative.
Imposed on this grainy background are two principal forms; animate/inanimate and anthropomorphic. The horse which seems to be liet motif in most of Zharotia's paintings, work as a metaphor for man's search for truth, for answers to eternal questions raised by nature's mysteries. Flowers and leaves don't just symbolise fertility, they rather reflect wisdom emanating from humankind. There is a strong undercurrent of play of passion and desire, partially concealed, that brings in a confrontational aspect to the duality such as Maneka's seduction of Vishwamitra.
The interplay of two elements is never stark either conceptually or visually in his paintings. The otherwise simple compositions are interspersed with symbols that relieve the loneliness of principal objects on one hand and add another dimension to the bond formed between the twin forces on the canvas on the other.
Jai Zharotia's latest exhibition of mixed media works is a mirror of the artist himself, seemingly simple and direct and yet working at multiple levels. Not content to work with a traditional code of symbols and meanings, he is subverting them to invent a visual vocabulary based on philosophy, experience and imagination. The excavation of his paintings thus, becomes a fantastic journey into the world beyond the perceptible.
- Seema Bawa
