by Nina Bhatt
That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive.
— Browning, “My Last Duchess”
I return to Anpu’s paintings as to a scene of crime. Once complicit in the act of portrait-making, unable/unwilling to resist the homecoming. The pilgrimage must be made, even if the reasons for setting out may be different each time.
As one of the victims, do I arrive to reclaim a lost kinship with the others? Perhaps. The ones portrayed. Each one differently manhandled. Or martyred. People like you and me, unexceptional, if not innocent, but for that certain trait that the serial portrait artist finds appealing, or unbearable, and must improve upon.
Each likeness a celebrated makeover. Flesh and blood re- cast as something more memorable, a character (Felix). When I look at the faces, I’m reading the fiction invented for that particular person by the artist. The descriptions in paint elaborate, following the tradition of the Russian novelists. Roles modeled by soliciting proximity, or across intense interrogations, as veteran actors are apt to do. Who better than friends to stalk and spy on, or buttonhole for long winded conversations. Come as they do, replete with quirks of character, compulsive habits, prejudices or mood swings.
The viewer is voyeur to what transpires between the artist and the model. The relationship offered up in a state of dissection, a transect that turns the portrait on its head — a landscape to be traversed or read. These are the dregs of a personal drama, the lees of dialogue.
I confront the portraits with my own checklist:
Would Anpu have cooked her mallu stew for this guy? Surely not.
What music did she play to keep her amused? Better not be Bob Marley.
Did they discuss Van Gogh’s letters? Was that model even literate.
Sometimes I wish the writing on the wall were less decipherable. I distrust the chiseled face on its flat mount board. A less ostentatious display of the trophy might not be a bad idea. As it is, the works show up like river stones in the underworld glow of studio light. And that is another reason I find myself drawn to them. Whatever the executor’s intension, all the incriminating evidence may be found in oils, on canvas.
The making and unmaking of character allows paint to mutate under pressure. Whether igneous or sedimentary in nature, the mineral glint holds your gaze captive. The persona of the sitter undergoes a kind of plastic surgery. In place of a tightening and smoothing over, there is a picking apart, an incision or a scalpel wound, inept sutures. Reconfiguring.
One discovers a sphere of hardened plasticine where individual dyes coagulate, in streaks, swirls, veins or hairlines of pure hue. (Simon)
Who better than the quarry to suggest improvements in the crime sequence?
I search for and find mutiny writ across the faces of this line-up. Mug shots they are, but they’ve begun to talk back, hold the viewer’s gaze (The waiting), and appear absorbed in thought or writing. But sometimes I also wish they’d lure the artist out of her studio.
Could the light falling on friends be sourced from elsewhere, to have Anpu trail them into their own territories, or to look for places that flaunt mood lighting and drama, such as at the beautician’s or the dentist’s, or an outdoor night market. Some of her best work has been sourced from the palette of the dislodged and discomfited performer.
I like to anticipate the next acts of terror. Call it voyage aboard a pirate ship, the ragtag crew often wrecked but always resurrecting, signing up new delinquents under the command of an ambitious and unscrupulous captain (Self portrait). With past masters to be challenged, issues painterly or compositional or philosophical thrashed bare, and an attempt, at the very least, made on the life of colorless art practice, there can be no fear of running into the doldrums.
That’s another excuse for lurking. As accomplice or plaintiff, model friend or conscientious dissenter, confession helps wash away sins. On all counts, Guilty.
This was originally written for an exhibition of portraits by Anpu Varkey at Khoj, Delhi, 2013
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Nina writes, paints, and makes leaf compost as garden produce from her home in Baroda, where she lives and works. Her published writings include poems in Kavya Bharati, The Caravan Magazine, Reading Hour, Wasafiri, an essay in Indian birds.