Pen & Dairy

By Mr. Prayag Shukla(Art Critic)

The moment one looks at the canvases of Rakesh Singh, a certain joy fills the heart and subsequently a sublime feel leads to their emotive intent. The way the colours form themselves by surging forth or taking a leap upward, is most enchanting. It is this spontaneous, yet sure formation of colours into certain shapes/forms, that urges us to look at the colours, and enjoy them without any pre-meditated notion. The colours-entities start revealing themselves in their tonal variations as well as to enhance our perception of colour(s) per say. The colours are not hazy or cloudy here, but have a certain fluidity, and a lightness of touch. Thus without making any extra effort in constructing images or breaking them into parts to abstract them, Rakesh entrusts himself to just follow their easy flow; and lets them take their own course. It is this effortless, sensitive handling of pigments, and movement of the brushstrokes, which finally arrives at consolidating certain colour areas to bear the intent of each of them.
There are no recognisable objects or figures here to fix the images into any narrative and they are open-ended in their semi-abstract formation to give the viewer ample space for his/her own receptive mechanism. But this is not to suggest that they do not have enough verve, and keep on swinging viewers’ perception without any fruitful deduction. Infact, the canvases from the very start attract the viewer for their sublime feel, as we have suggested earlier, and the sublime, and the aesthetic feel, as we have suggested earlier, and the sublime, and the aesthetic feel, when combined, brings a soothing and uplifting energy to the viewers gaze. Here in lies the significance of these works.
In our daily round of life, we keep on encountering colours in vegetation, in birds, flowers, plants, clouds etc. And in the man-made coloured objects, ranging from furniture to fabrics; yet it is in certain works of art that we come across the ‘colours’ in their bare and rare moods, where we respond to them intimately and intently. The blues, yellows and reds, with their various tonal expenses in Rakesh’s paintings brings us close to their inherent enormity also, though they have been used in a scale which is not enormous or expansive in itself.
At the retinal level this quality of these works is also most rewarding. In any case, these works suggest that with his exploration of colours, and their aesthetic intent Rakesh has tried to forge creatively a dialogue with myriad emotive experiences and in turn brought to us the works, one would like to admire for their purity and profundity. This is no mean achievement for a comparatively young artist, who dares to be innovative and explorative.

Prayag Shukla
The writer is a renowned Indian Art Critic, poet, and a fiction writer.