Editorials

An abstract of her reality

You cannot miss the spiral in crimson, the void in white, the banister in black. A stairway, isn't it? And that space with a flash of wrought iron grills; surely, it is a balcony where a Juliet might suddenly appear to seek her Romeo. And the splash of saffron over there, is it a bird of Paradise? Or sunlight on banana leaf?

Ask Tarannum, and she will tell you, the abstract oils on view are all this and more. For, abstraction, as Rothko once said, allows man to see with his mind what he cannot physically see with his eyes... "Abstract art enables me to perceive beyond the tangible, to extract the infinite out of the finite," Tarannum identifies completely with the European master who defined abstraction as "emancipation of the mind."

Like Mark Rothko, Tarannum will quote Piet Mondrian and Franz Kline, Leger and Gaugin and our very own Gaitonde. In each and every one of these high priests of abstraction, Tarannum finds a reiteration of her feelings as she stands facing a canvas, brush in hand. The multihued palette trails behind as her imagination races ahead, filling her mind's eye with imprints buried deep in her recollection. Fascinating images emerge then, to fill the rectangular theatres of colour. Forceful, confident, vigorous, voluble - the paintings, much like the artist herself, infect you with their eloquent exuberance.

Architecture is not the mainstay of Tarannum's work, but the elements she derives from the discipline instill confidence into her composition. For one, they spell out that there is a design behind the hurly burly of paints. The break up of space is by no means an accident, you can discern. However, the whiff of architecture in the rich tapestry of colours is just one of the influences on Tarannum. Poetry is another, and perhaps a more potent stimulant. Faiz and Rumi and Shakespeare, "they add to my confidence," she confides, "for, the poets unravel the mystery that is the thoughts of people!"

Poems and stories would colour the existence of Tarannum, born in a middle class UP family of four brothers and sisters. The businessman's household did not offer a creative environment for the budding artist, but before she realised it, Tarannum was inspired to write her heart out. Short stories and poems flew out of her pen, until she went to the Aligarh Muslim University and picked up the brush. "It is there that I realised why I wanted to paint: I wasn't good for anything else!" she states bluntly. Then she adds: "It took me years to understand that I cannot live without painting. For, I try to understand life through painting."

It's not a coincidence that poetry and painting - the two passions in Tarannum's life - are both abstract in nature. Clearly all her works are an abstract of thoughts, daily experiences, images, and moods. Sometimes they may be evocative, sometimes representational; on occasion, you might even find them explicit. As Tarannum digs into her memory, images swell up in her mind. "Unusual, seemingly unfamiliar marks and shapes that occur in my work could be interpretative of my thought. I select and then exaggerate or simplify the forms suggested by the world around me," she analyses her own ex-pressions.

More often than not, Tarannum makes no effort to represent a subject matter. Sometimes she applies paint with large brushes, sometimes she lets it drip, and at times, she even throws it onto the canvas. The aim, consciously or otherwise, is to leave a trace of her own memory in the recollection of her viewer. Put one stroke that will speak volumes. Or smear colour to mute a communication. Start with one colour, that will dictate the rest of the palette, perhaps the entire composition. Resemblance to reality? None. Meaning? Find your own. But why look for one? - Tarannum poses. Is there really a need to go beyond the visual? - You ask yourself. "Today, I understand Gaitonde better, because I understand that there does not have to be any meaning in art. Art itself gives meaning to life."

Profound it may sound, but at the end of the day, it simply urges you to soak in the experience the artist set out to translate into colour. Often an aural stimulant realises itself through the lines. The brush transforms a chiaroscuro of moods into a visual chimera. "I don't know what I'm going to paint. All I know is that I aim at one strong composition." The juxtaposition of pigments, of strokes, of voids, of brushwork - through all this, the one thing she does is create a resonance.

What is real, what is not? For Mondrian, it wasn't a subject for philosophers alone to debate, nor was it in the realm of spiritual. "That which they call abstract is the most realistic, because what is real is not the exterior but the idea," he summed up. That summation is the essence of Tarannum's art - and that's why they leave an indelible mark on the senses of her viewers.

Ratnottama Sengupta

28 February 2008