Introduction
A few days back, I went to Bikaner House. I keep visiting that place every now and then and it is the same as it ever was, with previews for a few of the exhibitions. There were a lot of awesome artworks at the exhibit and I drew to focus on three paintings that really caught my eye.
Three works by Bhaskar Bordoloi that transcend the allegorical in their surreal exploration of what it means to be human. Each image appears to speak to rituals, community and death, it presents dense visual ‘stories’ that question our interpretations of human activity and spirituality. These pieces create a discourse between structured ceremonial, pandemonium and then natural forces, all situated in surreal, fantastical landscapes. Through this contrast of life and death, prosaic and mystical, these images form a volatile axis from which viewers can contemplate our tenuous and intricate systems of being.
The Duality of Ritual and Chaos
In the painting a complex composition full of meaning is created, where life and death are metamorphosed into a ritual scene, and in turn social. This robed figure is surrounded by similar figures at the center of a group, which have gathered around statues in what can appear to be religious or ritualistic acts, perhaps representing worship, sacrifice or spiritual transformation. On the left, it is a darker image with suffering, agony and death where bodies are intertwined and submissive denouncing human fragility begging merciless ruin. The other figures that fall in headfirst towards the flames on the right are probably judgment or punishment, which means: divine intervention versus spiritual death.
An enframed figure in a wheelchair can be seen at the periphery, looking out to chaos; possibly society’s other, distanced or disallowed-perspective viewer of societal order. Fire, earth tones, and dramatic contrasts between the figures and the landscape suggest elemental forces—exemplified in fire as both destroyer and life giver; earth as decay and rebirth. This blending of religious, myth actual life our narrators undergo woven throughout the text and in frequent return challenges poetry itself as well as humanity’s existence with themes of repetition until redemption; nature is both beautiful and we insistent on poisoning it. Ultimately, the painting depicts a broken reality — exploring power and vulnerability, spirituality, humanity within the fragmented whole.
Surreal Landscapes of Initiation and Transformation
The second piece has a much more surreal and dreamy environment. In the background, soaring organic shapes that look like trees or monolithic dead eyes populate the landscape, a good indication this will be taking place in some un-Earth time and space. The naked and vulnerable are carrying out intimate rituals, while the clothed are performing ceremonial gestures. The characters are engaged in a kind of initiation and transformation that loci those shifting state to collective experience.
But rather than serve as mere landscapes, the tree-like structures repeat and reconfigure their way into sentinel statues that impose nightmarish rituals by participating as watchers over human performances. If you are not careful, the natural elements can become a symbol for the infinite and unchangeable strength of nature when compared to the short and frail lives of men bellow. The figures—many of them shown in the nude or wearing just a few scraps of tattered clothing—are made vulnerable, indicating that this may be an initiation scene: a time when an individual passes through a life transition and changes their role.
This gives the impression of something magical and mysterious, as if we are gazing upon a mist or a plume of smoke that is slowly rising from the ground. It feels like a dream or a myth as if these figures live in some otherworldly, eternal realm doing the ritual that knows no time. Mixing the surreal an fantasy so fluently that is no longer portraying human rituals but instead, diving into existential thoughts about life, death, and metamorphosis.
The Journey of the Collective Soul
The third image, the most broken up of the three shows a perforated “Island Hopping” through abstract lands in some sort of odd procession or travel. The figures move through these islands as in a processional, relating to each other differently according to groupings within the island. A few are in physical support, holding another figure, and the others seem to be talking or thinking. Collective movement through each lifecycle is first expressed in a composition — each step brings new constraint, burden, and mutation.
A being in white acts as the guide in the middle of the painting taking groups through its rungs. This number could represent a priest, religious leader or spiritual guide who helps humanity travel through the intertwining maze that is life. The tall, tree-like sculptures that appear in this piece also suggest that in such a scenario, nature itself becomes an important part of the journey. These organic bodies, along with the spiritual guide, seem to signify this as a pilgrimage site in which individuals seek knowledge or transcendence.
This painting also employs a motif of the journey, which is not limited to physical movement but enters into the metaphysical. The actions of the figures —one carries, supports, and guides another— evoke an inherent sense of togetherness in human life; one person needs another for aid and guidance. In the top part of the painting, which is divided into a series of separate islands, there are figures walking amidst some sort of cosmic watery scene that suggests hearts floating in an immense ocean devoid any recognisable objects except what we ascribe to our own delusions.
Conclusion: Human Existence Between Ritual and Mortality
This trio of artworks, when viewed as a whole, acts as a damning commentary to the human experience. Imbued with their surreal landscapes, they slipstream the rituals of spiritual and communal rites that seek to order life within chaos and death. At the same time, the works evoke a state of in-betweenness experienced throughout life and within death; fragility extended to its breaking point; layers of physicality writhing against their inner meanings. By situating human figures within the context of bizarre, magical realms these pieces are a reflection on the idea that despite the temporary relief found in rituals and traditions ultimately we are powerless against overarching, elemental existences such as nature, death and transformation.
Reflecting on moments of their life while delivering these allegorical scenes that ask the audience where they, themselves fit within the grand cosmos? And they ask how we, as humans, deal with the unknown — what our rituals and journeys and relationships say about us collectively and individually, in terms of determining our place within the world. These works, with their visual cues referencing our physical bodies and their soft dreamy qualities that are embedded into all the paintings, serve as a platform for meditating on the complexity and impermanence of being human.
Iftikar Ahmed is a New Delhi-based art writer & researcher.
