Sarah Boucara from France, Ranjit Paul from Kolkata and Amanpreet from Hyderabad got together for an art show and performance, Purple Tears, curated by Chippa Sudhakar at Banyan hearts studio. The extent of their artistic span was wide and so the show and two performances kept the viewers interested and intrigued throughout the event. “This is the first time that three of us are exhibiting and performing together,” tells Ranjit. Amanpreet adds enthusiastically, “I met Sarah when I went to France for an exchange programme at École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. We got together for the performance as an extension of our association there.” Sarah has performed in varied art/painting performances earlier, “This is my first with Amanpreet,” she discloses.
While the performance and slide show of works by Amanpreet and Sarah revolved around the imposed paradigms and definitions of gender related conventional ideas, the print works by Ranjit brought forth the serious impacts of standardised patterns that exist in a materialism seeking society. One of the installation works by the artist contained a card castle with repeated print of a figure on it. “This work manifests the race to reach the top in an achievement driven society. There is often the lack of individualism and uniqueness in this pattern. Those who reach the top are lonely, they often have to make multiple sacrifices and sometimes have to forget the basic core contents of their existential reality, what kind of success is this,” asserts the artist with an obvious trace of emphasis.
A series of prints by Ranjit were dominated by the presence of a bared skeleton of a human rib cage. The almost realistic drawing of the rib cage was given a streak of fantasy by the presence of a black bird inside it. Each work depicted the bird in a different place and stance. These works for the viewer symbolically represented the veiled/deeply set thoughts inside a mind.
A short performance by Ranjit, wherein the artist crawled and gradually walked on the path of pebbles laid specially for his act, depicted stages from birth to death in a human life. In between, he picked up a few pebbles but shed them all off before reaching the end of his prescribed journey. When asked he shrugged innocently, “We cannot carry the gifts we receive in our journey of life after certain time, we have to leave and surrender them all back eventually.”
Sarah Barua and Amanpreet were dressed like men (with moustaches) and especially noteworthy was their stance and body language that reflected a strikingly ‘manly’ aura. During the painting performance the two artists started writing and drawing symbolic abbreviations on long newspaper rolls spread on the floor. They brought forth a few notions which the artists feel very strongly about, Amanpreet quietly and passionately painted Hindi words such as ‘mat darr’, ‘mardana bann’ etc. Sarah painted simplified symbolic images of female sexuality. Amanpreet tells further, “Our act brings forth the marks and lines of distinction which have always been there about gender differences like, the expectation from a girl to wear certain kind of clothes, etc. Our act questions the gender stereotypes that are innately ingrained in our society.” Sarah tells further, “I think about contemporary patterns, gender queerness, freedom and stuff from my point of view and represent them through my work. The viewers are welcome to have their own,” she concludes.
