All the work that I have created has lead to the formation of energy in my own self. I would like to think that some of this energy has become imprisoned in my work so that other people can feel it.
All the artist that I admire – Rubens, Michelangelo, Tintoretto, Rembrandt, Rodin, Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, Ramkinkar Baij, Francis Newton Souza and some others – have a life giving power in their work.
Landscape has been for me one of the sources of this energy. It is generally thought that no sculptor is much interesting in landscape, but is only concerned with the solid, immediate form of the human figure or animals. For myself, i have always been very interested in landscape. (I can never read on train – I have to look out of the window in case I miss something.) As well as landscape views and cloud formations, I find that all natural forms are a source of unending interest—tree trunks, the growth of branches form the trunk, each finding its individual air- space, the texture and variety of grasses, the shape of shells, of pebbles, etc. The whole of nature is an endless demonstration of shapes and form, and it surprises me when artist try to escape from this. Not to look at use Nature in one’s work is unnatural to me.
I have no inhibitions about using different forms and different experiences combined together in one work, whether their source in animal, human, or form natural materials.
By the intense study of numerous particular examples in Nature, one can discover certain underlying principal which can be used, singly or combined, to produce a new and unique work which owes its unity to the artist’s instinctive comprehension of low of Nature.
The whole basis of my reaction to form and my understanding of it is fundamentally related to the human body and to my own physical experiences. For me this is reality.
Vikash Kalra
Vikash Kalra is a self-taught artist and writer based in New Delhi whose work has been exhibited across India and is held in several private and corporate collections.