V. Ramesh

Overview

V. Ramesh’s development through the years, as an artist, seems to have been as open and fluid as his paintings. Large in scale, their vaporous ethereality suggests a deeply introspective mood. Perhaps best described as metaphysical allegories for his own rite of passage through art and life, Ramesh’s paintings appear to be a flux of his particular consciousness. His concerns have remained steadfast throughout this journey. Images, whose multiple associations have been drawn from cultural and personal memory, continue to reverberate with a sense of otherworldliness, even as they lurk within washes of abstract painterliness. Rarely does one feel the disruptive breath of the contemporary world. References to sages, mystics, and poets communicate ideas that infuse the artist’s introspections even as they inform his oeuvre.

Interested in how image and content flow into each other, the artist’s precise techniques and engaging iconographies lend themselves to suggestive narratives that have, this time, included the re-contextualization of some of India’s saint poets, along with some of his earlier subjects.

Throughout the gamut of his current works, the artist seems to be making physical an experience that only exists in the realm of the subtle, something like the space of dreams that can be captured only in the flash second before waking from sleep and is then instantly forgotten. Instead of an intellectual search for symbols and meanings, he seems to encourage a sensual, experiential relationship with the unconscious, with visuals that are intense and iconic. The enigmatic results can at once hint at a narrative and deny conclusive interpretation for some, while for others, the experience has elements of the profound, even as they glimpse the transcendent amidst the implied and the elusive. The transformative power of paintings like these perhaps lies in the way they can move away from simple allegory into the realm of pure experience, the images near heroic in their isolation as well as cumulatively mysterious.

His works, some larger than ever before, often lend themselves to a fresco-like format, where both luminous colors and fine linear drawings with their subtle poetic communications, are layered and re-layered in explorations that represent multiple facets ofidentity and personal faith in terms of the country’s mythic and sacred traditions. His manipulations of internal space while using the images’ constituents are full of controlled accidents, of leitmotifs and visual stimuli that are interwoven in a fluid continuum of translucent overlays. Sometimes there’s a textual content, calligraphic markings that stray across the plane, somewhat like semaphore signals. In their spare, almost insinuated use, they acquire a resonance when conflated with the image. It is an image that is at once implied, at once accessible, and yet so frequently overlaid that sometimes one is not sure it had been there at all.

Excerpts from an essay by –

Kamala Kapoor

Note

The journey of one’s existence and work run parallel, feeding and acting on each other. I have, over the years, discarded many hard-held notions. The earlier solidity of the human figure as well as the tight compositions, have given way to a blurring of boundaries. These are in a continuous state of flux. Extensive reading of Advaitic philosophy during the last few years have, perhaps, opened up for me perceptions of the unity — the oneness of being – and – existence — that exist under the surface of constant change.

Most of my work is imbued with a deep personal reverence, and hints at areas of faith, devotion and transcendence, but it articulates these ideas in an oblique manner, using voices from medieval poetry and imagery culled from mythology.

I often use allegory because it can allude to my concerns and what I want to express in a more poetic and potent manner. Allegory allows us multiple readings of the image depicted in the narrative.

To be able to draw the viewer within, through this state of flux, through the layers of paint, images and text to be able to transcend these outwardly seen and perceived phenomena. And, perhaps to be able to discern and perceptively intuit the truth imbued in the work. But to do this one has to adopt strategies and improvise modes of expression. I often borrow from narratives from traditional sources.

Biography

Born in Andhra Pradesh in 1958, V. Ramesh completed both his graduate and postgraduate studies in Fine Arts at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda. He was the recipient of the Junior Fellowship from the Department of Culture (1990–93), the Sanskriti Award (1993), and the Senior Fellowship from the Department of Culture (1995–97). Since 1985, he has been teaching at the Department of Fine Arts, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam.

Ramesh is the first practising artist to be invited to show solo at the National Gallery Of Modern Art, Bangalore in March 2014. Ramesh has developed a distinctive narrative vocabulary, rooted in our sacred and literary culture. His engaging iconographies lend themselves to powerfully suggestive narratives particularly in terms of literary and sacred traditions. In doing so, they create their own powerful visual vocabulary, compelling the viewer to tend to look deep within even while re-visiting the past.

Ramesh’s recent solo exhibitions include From the Ordinary to the Extraordinary: Pandemic Still Lifes at Gallery Threshold, New Delhi (2021), In My Own Words at Gallery Threshold, New Delhi (2017), and Remembrances of Voices Past at NGMA, Bangalore (2014) and at Katzen Arts Center, American University Museum, Washington (2015). Other notable solo shows at Gallery Threshold, New Delhi, include Why Cross the Boundary (2011–2012), Sanctum: A Corner for Four Sisters (2012), My Heart Would Be Enough (2008), and Painted Hymns (2007). Earlier solo exhibitions include A Thousand and One Desires at Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai, and Gallery Threshold, New Delhi (2005); Gallery Threshold, Visakhapatnam (1998); Apparao Galleries, Chennai (1998); Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai (1997, 1993, 1988); and Sakshi Gallery, Bangalore (1991), as well as the Centre of Contemporary Art, New Delhi (1990).

He has been part of many important group shows and biennales across the globe over the years across India and internationally such as Trans-Formative Vision at Threshold Art Gallery, New Delhi (2024), Reflecting the Self at Bikaner House, New Delhi (2023), and India Reflections at the inArtibus Foundation, Moscow (2022). Other significant group exhibitions include From Ordinary to the Extraordinary: Pandemic Still Lifes, Gallery Threshold, New Delhi (2021), Verdant Memory, Gallery Threshold, New Delhi (2018), Revisiting Beauty, Gallery Threshold, New Delhi (2016), Revisiting Intuitive Logic, Davos (2011), India Art Summit (2008–2011), Mapping Memories, Gallery Threshold, New Delhi (2008), and Recent Trends in Contemporary Indian Art, Vadehra Art Gallery (1995).

Earlier participations include Second Biennial of Art, Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal in 1988, Sakshi Gallery at Jehangir Art Gallery Mumbai (1992), Second Biennial at Havana, Cuba (1982). He has been regularly represented by Threshold Art Gallery at the India Art Fair (2008–2011, 2019), and other notable group exhibitions include Hashiya: The Border, Bikaner House (2018), and Painted Almanac, curated by Tunty Chauhan, New Delhi (2019).

Ramesh’s work has been sustained and nourished over the years through his interaction with his students, his spiritual leanings, and his scholarly pursuits. His works are housed in the collections of Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, National Gallery of Modern Art and Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

Ramesh lives and works in Visakhapatnam.