THE GRAMMAR OF STRENGTH & DESIRE

Reddish incarnate, sometimes changing to pink or light brown, defines the bodies (always male) in B O Shailesh's new series of paintings. “Yoga Tantra” flashes up in your mind when observing those, often strangely twisted, figures. Some rest in classical yoga positions, but they are mostly shown from astonishing angles and viewpoints. Very often a lotus flower emerges from somewhere, be it the person's body or the background. Small long tubes (lotus stems? Keepers of life's essence?) are around, intertwining the body and the erratic surrounding of it. A script appears and holds the individual objects and the person together, sometime with an intricate message, though mostly purposely obscured by enigmatic linguistic contributions.

B O Shailesh's work deal with manifold intellectual and, at the same time, highly emotional ideas. Always an allusion to God Vishnu is found. The preserver of the state of the world and the mind in their present form, as the very static formations of all persons represented in his paintings indicate.

But there is also change, there is a concept of a new life imaginable in the future, which allows the flower to grow and bloom, somewhere in the painting. Often the stem of the flower meanders around, as well-known in old Indian miniatures. But finally the lotus blossom always rises rigidly into the air, creative power, symbol of mental and carnal strength.

Strength is also the predominant feeling that emerges from the “assistant figures” (as is was called in medieval western art). In some works; the tiger, in a manly potent attire, the severe looking dog, jumping out or through an almond shaped ring, right at the most creative part of the man's body. There are positions of strong wrestling, of masculine gestures and faces, of bodies more used as architectural elements than of human life signs. And there is a background that freezes everything into a marble-cold artificiality. One can feel the emotional vibrations, the desire for a vibrant life. Yet what one really sees is the mask that dissimulates and hides what lies underneath. The craving for an open unabashed life, now or in future, is evident, the desire to find a life where the surrounding cold and the highly controlled etat d etre will be overcome.

The artist demonstrates his goal and perspective in striding for such a future by using strength and mental order, combining intellectual artistic means of highly developed professional techniques with an iconography that is scholarly and imaginative at the same time. B O Shailesh's works touch the string of a tuned instrument, very unique and personal in the great orchestra of Contemporary Indian Art.

                                                                   -By Ernst W. Koelnsperger