Dust to dust: And the art of GR Iranna in between

Amid his ongoing exhibit, ‘Boodi’, in Delhi, artist GR Iranna holds forth on prominent motifs and materials in his art practice, the democratic nature of art, and his views on the pandemic’s impact

Layers are one of the first things that strike you about the art of GR Iranna. His materials — accessible and identifiable — are assembled into profound narratives, which in turn are layered with a diversity of meanings and interpretations.

In fact, the artist is quite vehement that the freedom of understanding a work of art reposes solely in the individual that views it, whatever may be the intention of the artist. “People connect their own experiences to an object or painting or sculpture when they see it, whether good or bad. They interpret it in their own way, and I am happy to see that, because there is no right or wrong. All that is important is that my work is creating communication with you. If it doesn’t, my art is dead. The fact that it communicates with you makes it alive, says that it has a soul,” says the 51-year-old.

His latest solo exhibition, Boodi, is on display at Gallery Espace in New Delhi, both offline and online, till April 15. Meaning ash in Kannada, ‘boodi’ has also been extensively and innovatively utilized on the canvases here, besides other materials like brick dust, coal powder, black ash, mud, and more.

“Dust to dust — there is a certain meaning inherent to this ash, and I am merely trying to bring forth its own essence, and explore that meaning. It is a material that is familiar to me since my childhood, and has its own significance and morality via social, spiritual and cultural heritage. We are all just guests here on earth, and also a part of nature. If we become one with nature, and see ourselves from far above, it is clear that we are nothing — a small speck in a vast universe,” Iranna says.

“Every object carries its own story or narration. And the artist bringing it forward becomes a storyteller.”

In this vein, another prominent motif of the exhibit (and a long-standing favourite of the artist) is trees — some canvases here feature trees laden with a burst of delicate blooms (indicative of how they cyclically return to the earth below to become dust); placed elsewhere are large, hyper-realistic bronze sculptures of tree branches or logs. “Every object carries its own story or narration. And the artist bringing it forward becomes a storyteller. Trees witness a thousand years sometimes, through war, peace, generation, beggars, kings — I sometimes use this tree as representative of an innocent person. It can be moulded, melted, grown like Bonsai, and it never complains. A tree does not question who eats its fruit. Why then can we not be a part of this way of existence — this is always a question on my mind, amongst many unsolved queries,” he says.

In the past, Iranna has been vocal about the dominance of figuration in his early works slowly moving into the realms of abstraction and metaphor, as well as sculpture. But the underlying commonality remains a sense of compassion, and a tendency to connect to the agrarian and working classes via his art, attributed by Iranna to his small town roots in Sindgi, located in Bijapur, Karnataka.

In a way, he also believes that art is a great leveler, free to be observed and understood by everybody in their own unique way. “It is a form of expression and it is not always necessary to understand exactly what the artist wants. One can enjoy something even without understanding it entirely. But one thing that needs to be there to absorb art is interest and it cannot be forced — if you are sitting in a garden but don’t want to see the flowers, you will not!” he muses.

Iranna’s art has been witnessed at prolific locations worldwide since 1992, from the top art galleries of Delhi and Mumbai to London, Cairo, Hong Kong, and more. The multi-award winning artist feels that ultimately, he is a mirror that reflects his childhood, society, nature and surroundings. “We are all witnesses of time and space, and it comes out through art — I essentially become a medium for all these reflections via my own ideas,” he says, professing his appreciation for the works of notable artists like Anselm Kiefer, Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee.

With all his experience today, asked if he has any advice for younger artists, Iranna somberly puts forth: “The artist’s journey is not so much a struggle as a chance to experience it all. One has to believe in oneself to succeed and then, nobody can stop you. Don’t try to take short cuts, else you will lose your path, and remain neither here nor there.”

Younger artists, shares Iranna, also got the short shrift in the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. “In the last six to eight months, well-established artists have been making huge sales, almost three times what they normally do. The relatively lesser known ones, however, have really suffered. Art may have experienced a boom, but not for everyone. One thing the pandemic did do for everyone, though, is teach us that we are nothing in front of nature. It divorced us all a little from the rat race.”

“You can read a hundred books about the mango, but never understand how it tastes till you actually bite into one.”

But in this new normal we are emerging into, does Iranna embrace the shift to embracing art wholly on digital platforms? Laughing, he signs off, “You can read a hundred books about the mango, but never understand how it tastes till you actually bite into one.”