Yashwant Deshmukh

 Altruism of Lines Solo by Yashwant Deshmukh

Solo by Yashwant Deshmukh

Yashwant Deshmukh is a contemporary conceptual artist, born in 1963,  growing up in Akola, Vidarbha, in the scorching interiors of Maharashtra. He graduated with a BFA from Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai in 1988 . In this exhibition he presents works from 2007 to 2019. It’s his short journey with his works. In the span of his career of thirty years Yashwant made various crossings between figuration and symbolic abstraction. He accentuates the lyrical and meditative elements of the object, and preserves the resonance in a monochromatic painterly treatment. He brings it with his personified ways that demonstrate his bounteous visualitics that proves it’s crest of minimalism. In fact it is a maximization of minimalism. Minimization is not to be the least nor is it for the emptiness, moreover it is an actuality and vitality. How would he forget the ascendancy of his village life, the experiences that left a deep imprint on his mind whilst building his life . Vidarbha is an extremely hot region with low rainfall. Until the age of twenty a boy who had never left his village and seen the outer world and thus never obliterated his deep interest in his in village life in later life and art. His expression is as clear and as simple as he lives and it exists with its individual and an exclusive identity.

Artist Yashwant Deshmukh

The extensive moorland under the scorching hot sun that is dilated straight to the horizon, in between is the sporadic appearance of the Acacia and Neem trees that breaks the horizon; the houses arise from the land itself and stand as the globe becomes the textured walls of the vista. There is a special kind of extinction throughout the scorching afternoon in the field, it is a different kind of quiescence. Sometime it is secluded from people. Habitations of small houses, sparse trees, deep arid bottoms of the well, when you peek into such deep wells you can experience a particular kind of eerie darkness, and silence in it sometimes it is haunted too. In this scenario underneath the roof of the immense blue sky and the desert gives you the realisation of your insignificance. This realisation calms you and it can push you to explore and discover yourself. What could be the end of life? The death? What would be the situation after death? Is it the same calmness and peace that will be there after death? It is the same voluminous vacuity? These experiences and consciousness of dialogue within ones self makes a balance between sphere of consciousness and context of visual expressions. His direct and indirect living within this realm endears in his art.

The works that you are seeing in this exhibition are not a straight trajectory of practice as you may perceive them to be, Yashwant made many crossings to reach here, after graduating from Sir J.J. School of Art he was experimenting with many art forms also he had a great influence of typical style of JJ's schooling, that he later refused to pursue . Initially he had done experimentation with all the forms including figurative, abstraction, still life, portraits. The change and the search within is the identity of a rational and logical mind. This logic is the beginning of wisdom. While walking to this path of wisdom and in search of self he turns to recall his roots where he spent memorable life moments at his village where he gets his source of fascination. It carries ingrained associations, for him, such as the hayrick, anthill and the grain store. He has done a solo show on the subject of the grain store. One can imagine how quotidian objects can play the impactful and important role in his practice and in discourse after seeing Yashwant’s work. The experience from the terrace in the dark night, the moonlight lightens the trees and the small houses; only the brighter edges are visible in the dark; it is the combination of line space and form in the atmosphere. Such frames live in depth of his mind. In daily life somebody feels the subject, somebody finds the content but Yashwant gets forms and those forms are enough to become a painting. Usual  common objects come in his art and it become uncommon and spectacular. Kites, human figures, pot, cycle, instruments, houses and many objects are the elements of his work. His work is born through his way of his seeing and experiencing the objects and surroundings. It matters, because I can see such things everyday, though I can not experience them like him. His observation and understanding is specific towards it so he sees it particularly.

Yashwant never needs anything else to represent his objects other than the line, and limited simple colours, it is fulfilled by it only. He doesn’t rely on any other support for it. his visual patterns are very simple but exclusive and significance sensitization of his feelings. Only a form/ object can be the effective subject of painting for him. A rhythm of line, a construction and deconstruction of form, a single colour are enough as elements to construct a strong visual image. The object, form or a line this is the only content and context of his work. How it seems to him is more important, the feeling, emotions within it are important, and this feeling keeps exclusiveness in his art. He denies all the natural sources and effects on the elements like light, shadow, its volume, velocity; he wipes it out, nurtures it in his own way and simultaneously he brings the new image within it. At the same time he breaks the regular image while upgrading the same with a new form which is a key factor of his expression. The original form lifts slightly from the surface and separates it from the background with simple line-plays becoming the mysterious magic of wealthier visuals as a painting. These outer lines and forms, invisible movements of the plains slowly led me to discover varied forms within hidden spaces. The interrelation between form and space kept on adding new dimensions to his paintings.

Prabhakar Kamble 

Mumbai

14 November 2019