Bronze has always been my primary means of expression, though I worked with stone and wood in my initial years as a sculptor. Recently, I have felt more open to working in a new medium and seeing how I would communicate with it. Being in touch with young artists from Kala Havana has been very inspiring. The work of a young artist from Kala Bhavana, Ruma Choudhury of Paper Nest, opened up the possibilities of working with paper to me. Ruma works with a large variety of fibre – straw, sugarcane, ramie, paddy – and with her collaboration I have learnt and experimented with the interesting process of making paper for sculptural purposes.

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In the process of making, the paper pulp is a watery substance. You pour water on the fibre to mix it to the desired density. I enjoy this fluidity. It touches on many of my recurring themes: memories; my rainy childhood in Kerala; my engagement with boats as concrete metaphor, especially in the context of migration… That is the work  which emerges from my fingers as I communicate with the paper, using the same small, ephemeral human figures I have worked with for many years. At times, crossing in a boat, they are on a journey. They may or may not reach successfully. The wet pulp actually allows these figures to sink in the ‘water’. At other times, these figures become tiny Musuis and Maiyas who are part of a cloud, simultaneously immersed in it and emerging from it in a rainy burst!

 

I am now in the process of communicating with paper. It has made a hole in my memories and images hidden behind the curtain of time have come pouring out. I am not making moulds as we do for sculptural pieces – or as the great Somnath Hore did for his paper pulp series. These are direct creations. Pictorial yet tactile, the paperbronze jugalbandi creates a human drama of form, texture, shadows and feeling which I look forward to exploring more.