Painting as Meditation: A film on V.S. Gaitonde by Salil Kaldate

Speakers: Ranjit Hoskote, Mehli Gobhai and Sunil Kaldate

May 7, 1997 | 6.30 pm
Little Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai

The evening will begin with the screening of the film titled `V.S. Gaitonde’ directed by Sunil Kaldate.

Abstract art in India has marked affinities with Indian classical music. It also sets off resonances from the genre of meditational painting which prevails in the ‘tantrik’ school. These affinities and resonances form a backdrop against which Indian artists have engaged with the non-figurative idioms of Western exemplars ranging from Kandinsky to Pollock. In the work of V. S. Gaitonde, a calligraphic sensibility combines with invocations to the natural and cosmic, to produce paintings whose meanings stress the motif even as they dissolve it. The screening will be followed by a discussion.