Themes on dispossession, space clash find their way into Binoy Varghese’s canvases

Don’t ask me tough questions,” is the first sentence that artist Binoy Varghese utters softly. A man with a ready smile and a quiet demeanour, Varghese is a pleasure to meet. When you do, you notice his hands first. They are small for a man known for his broad and vast canvases, lapped up by contemporary art galleries and art aficionados. His strokes are bold and the colours on the canvas pop out in their opaqueness. All that life and colour that his canvases breath out, comes from a mild-mannered, small man. The other peculiarity, is just how neat his studio is. It is spanking clean and austere, apart from the two easy chairs, a table, two frayed carpets spotted with paint and two canvases (one nearly complete and the other just starting to get brushes of colour). Both, I am informed, will find a place in the upcoming India Art Fair, to be held at the end of January. The walls of his studio are a unobtrusive cream—not quite the messy, ‘statement studios’ that some artists seem to prefer. The artist himself, like most members of his ilk, loves to work in the morning light. He makes ample use of the rays that streams in from the large verandah that adjoins his studio room. Clean and organised, the studio apartment breaks a layperson’s notion of how an artist lives and works. When you tell him such, you are greeted with a chuckle. “That is quite the romantic notion, is it not? An artist being an untidy, cluttered being, working in a similar environment; an artist being that person who ekes out a living and sustains herself or himself on cups of chai and adda?” he nods. trip to the library for the free books and hours of sessions on art were a part of Varghese’s life. Not the clutter though, never the clutter, as he had strict parents who emphasised on cleanliness. “I have seen both sides of an artist’s life—relative poverty and anonymity and the fame and fortune. I was a part of the art scene both before and after the Indian art boom. When I was a student at the Chennai Cholamandal Art Village, chai and adda sessions were all that we had in our life. We attended classes, went to the library to pore over books, then sat in the sun with chai and then talked till it was dark and we could not see each other. When we managed to sell a painting we patted our backs and thanked the Lord, and went out to party,” he ends with a chuckle. That life has changed. Today, Varghese is almost a household name—I say almost, as Indian laypersons pay little attention to fine arts or artists on most days, apart from a few world-famous personalities such as a Hussain or a Anjolie Ela Menon (incidentally, the lady in question provided Varghese a home and a studio space in Delhi’s Nizamuddin area when he had arrived as a student with just a few shows under his belt). Varghese does not agree with the statement that fine art is mugh-neglected. To him the Indian art scene has changed considerably. So much so that parents do not faint at the mention of art as a career—as his nearly did. Before it was all about fine art, it was all about music for Varghese. All the five siblings were a part of the church choir. Varghese’s eldest brother is still in-charge of the local choir. Varghese is still known for his melodious voice and is often pestered to sing in parties and get-togethers. “I have two sisters and two brothers. I am, sort of, in the middle. I was a sickly sort of a child, while my siblings were the boisterous lot, the local heroes, who went outdoors to play, mingle and be the stars. I would be at home sitting with my mother. In fact, I was at home even when she was not around. She would tell me sit at a spot and not move unless I needed to. Then she would go for a visit to a relative’s house. She would come back and find me sitting at the very same spot,” he remembers. The fact that the less-boisterous Varghese spent hours indoors in the company of his mother did help him develop an affinity towards silence and introspection— two things that are precious to him even today. By the time he was in school he was an introvert who wanted to be “different” from his “super-liked” elder brothers. “I realised that I could not be one of them, so I wanted to be me, and be liked for what I was. I wanted to develop my language and art seemed like a strong voice,” he says. Partly, the inclination towards art was also a familial effect—his parents were always inclined towards art. “In my childhood years, while visiting my maternal uncle’s house I would enjoy music and singing by my two maternal uncles; one a harmonist and the other a violinist and both singers in their own right. My parents always encouraged me and my siblings to be active in school singing competitions. We were a part of the church choir. We used to sing devotional songs every evening,” he adds. But coming back to his art, he started with a basic plan; doing illustrations of film posters and advertisements, which got the attention and nod of neighbours and family. During his Plus-Two, Varghese did the switch and enrolled into the RLV College of Fine Arts, Kerala, for a National Diploma in Fine Arts and specialised in commercial art, which he considered to be “pragmatic”. Post-diploma, Varghese did two solo shows and then went on to spend two precious years in the Cholamandal Artists Village, which he considers to be formative years for him. There, he met people (singer Minmini was a batchmate and Yesudas an alumni) who would act as valuable peers and mentors. “I was still experimenting with mediums, and around that time I received a scholarship Kanoria Art Center in Ahmedabad. Again that exposure to various forms did me wonders and got me close to Delhi, which was always a city that attracted me.” But he soon understood that the mixed medium that he loved to experiment with—some of the earlier works still strewn around his studio—had few takers in the Indian market. He needed to be a part of something more familiar—and thus he started with oil and acrylic. At first he would paint people who he knew—friends and their spouses, putting them in a background that was interesting and different. In the year 1998 he received a studio space in Delhi and started working on his first solo show at the Academy of Fine Arts and Literature. Though the NCR is where he has been living for decades now, Varghese’s colorful canvases, are brimming with images that lie in the politics of his native Kerala. Migration and displacement, the clash between rural and urban cultures, violence, and gender discrimination are just some of the underlying concerns which he paints about. Varghese picks his imagery from the mundane— newspapers and magazines. There was a time when he would cut out photographs from newspapers. Off late, he has been contemplating and taking photographs on his own. Most of the time his protagonists— always Asian women and children—appear in their worlds against a background of a made-up environment of thick flora and fauna that engulfs them. Verghese tries to capture lives of dispossessed but they are not always the victims of bad times, but optimistic survivors of hard times. His paintings have a beauty, romance and dignity to them and a calm which is intrinsic to the character of the artist.