“I had to fight for 8 to 9 months and though we won the case, it left a very bad taste in my mouth. I began painting landscapes and it is only 20 years later that I came back to the theme.  Now I have done a series of nudes, which is pure form.”

JOGEN CHOWDHURY
“My work does not start out to be subversive or sensationalist. I merely react to the situations around me, like any other human being would,” says Chowdhury, who is known for his classic cross-hatched works that are sensuous depictions of men, women and gods. “However my Wounded series is one of my more powerful works. Aftermath, Abu Ghraib and The Unborn Child take a stand against the kind of violence we have seen perpetrated in recent times,” the artist says. If the suture running through the back of a reclining figure in Abu Ghraib is the mark of a rupture in civilisation, in The Unborn Child, a woman’s stomach is split open with her infant spilling out. Chowdhury’s take on obscenity and art: “What is more obscene is the manner in which the freedom of expression is being attacked.”

TYEB MEHTA
Once grossly undervalued as an artist, Mehta now needs little introduction, with the prices of his works going through the roof up in the last three years. His works have so far steered clear of controversy though the artist notes “many of my works have very subversive Mahisasuras”. “I never work to shock. My aesthetics is a product of all that I see around me, all the art and life that I have assimilated in my lifetime. I create my work on the basis of these factors. I have my personal concerns that usually look at the formal aspects of art like colour, line and form,” says the reclusive Mehta, who made it a point to attend a public rally held outside Mumbai’s Jehangir Art Gallery to protest the attack on Baroda art student Chandramohan. The veteran artist is a voice of reason in a time of crisis. “I have seen a lot of paintings in the West and in temples in Bhubaneswar. You don’t need me to tell you that these are erotic works. I believe it’s more important to internalise the whole concept of the art and understand where the artists are coming from, at what time they created those works and who they built it for. One cannot see these works in isolation.”

... contd.