THERE lies a little city leagues away.
Its wharves the green sea washes all day long.
Its busy, sun-bright wharves with sailor's song
And clamour of trade ring loud the live-long day.
Into the gappy harbour hastening, gay
With press of snowy canvas, tall ships throng.
The peopled streets to blithe-eyed Peace belong,
Glad housed beneath theses crowding roofs of grey.
'Twas long ago this city prospered so,
For yesterday a woman died therein.
Since when the wharves are idle fallen, I know,
And in the streets is hushed the pleasant din;
The thronging ships have been, the songs have
been;--
since yesterday it is so long ago.
Robert Charles G D
The deserted city
Entering into Santosh More’s canvas resembles walking into a page from the classic Nineteen Eighty-Four (also titled 1984). Eric Arthur Blair, better known as George Orwell, wrote a futuristic novel that struck a chill into the heart of capitalists the world over. Orwell’s nightmarish narrative was a scathing critique of the governments control and surveillance of the populace. He questioned the Big Brother approach where the eye of the government was constantly watching, even through the walls of the miserable tenement block flats that the workers inhabited.
Santosh’s approach is perhaps less nightmarish, rather it is a prosaic pondering of the after effects of the capitalized, global world. Here uniformity indicates monotony that has crept into architectural creativity. Row upon row of identical houses crowd the canvas. The streets appear as empty as the houses, with not a soul in sight—this ghost town is not a figment of the artist’s imagination since his inspiration comes from reality.
Yet Santosh More’s world is surreal and the town a creation of his imagination. The houses first resemble naïvely constructed drawings that one rendered as a child, however on closer inspection they reveal a complexity and a plasticity that lends the images a three-dimensionality that may escape the viewer at first viewing.
Each row of houses are not very different from the other and yet, each for the hopes and dreams of an individual or family.
Known for his arabesque, mostly flat and decorative works, Santosh takes a sharp turn towards work that is distinctly different with this new body of paintings, line drawings and animation. Shorn from fussy detailing, the minimalist rendering of the houses, set against flat colour fields of red, evoke powerful feelings of enigma and discomfort. In some frames they may appear like doll houses, or an aerial image of the city that is familiar to frequent flyers.
Another view is a close-up, a dissection where walls develop a plastic quality and swell out to reveal the empty interiors, a quality that is enhanced in the artist’s animated video series.
Santosh was born in a small province in Maharastra, a village that he revisits to stay in touch with his roots. Perhaps it is this shuttling between urbanity and the rural sharpens his vision and brings certain issues into clear focus. Santosh is acutely aware that industry has made even commodities of culture and heritage, which is why some villages are being ‘preserved’ for their quaint and antiquated qualities. Urbanity is not encouraged, even if that means cutting back on basic amenities. The stunting of growth in villages and the acceleration of growth in cities, naturally leads to polarities and the widening of the rural urban divide. Santosh stands between these chasms measuring his space between the world he lives in now and the world that he once knew to be his home town.
Georgina Maddox
October 2008 Mumbai
