V. Ramesh’s latest show Why Cross the Boundary at Gallery Threshold, is a dialogue with mystical tradition as well as with his own spiritual self. The artist has always been on a quest to find his own inner voice through devotion expressed in his paintings, often devotion to his guru. The current work is imbued with Advaitic philosophy that advocates the oneness of being —and existence. Through the images of three female saint-poets or bhaktas he emphasises the erasure of boundaries between being and consciousness, materiality and physicality on one hand and spirituality on the other, between form and formlessness.

He has chosen to paint from the narratives regarding these female mendicants as well as from their poetry. Chronologically the first is of course Karaikkalamma who lived in fifth century Tamil Nadu and then comes Akka Mahadevi from 12th century Karnataka. Lastly comes Lala Ded or Lala Arifa or Lallereshwari who was not only a great 14th century saint-seer but also one of the originators of Kashmiri literature.

All three of these women poets were not only known for the intensity of their devotional feeling, but also for their loss of illusion and their insights of human existence. They refused to be reduced and while alive, they resisted conforming to the conventions of the day. These women steadfastly rejected the caste and gender paradigm of the day, declaring their devotion to their lord Shiva by shunning their family and the hegemony of the patriarchal state. They walked naked; needing no other clothing but that of their devotion to cloak their modesty. One can see this in one of the paintings that shows the two twisted halves of a shawl thrown at Lala Ded to cover her which she disdainfully tore and knotted, accepting and reveling in her nakedness and in the physical deprivations inflicted on her.

In Ramesh’s work the earlier solidity of the human figure as well as the tight compositions; have given way to a blurring of boundaries. Layer upon layer of translucent images and motifs reveal the shadowy but effect figure of the devotee-supplicant reveling in the blessings of bhakti.

— The writer is an art historian, curator and critic