My journey together with Vaishali must have started during our art school days. Vaishali was my senior and I used to like her work, especially the portraits she used to paint. I was a frequent visitor to her class. We were all a group from my class and her class used to hang around in the library, discussing the things referring to the books about the great masters. We were so mesmerized and enthusiastic about the art world that most of us were dreaming of great things in the future.
After completing our courses in between we were not in connection for 4-5 years. In the year 1996, there was an exhibition I had been asked to curate for the Lions club at Turf Club of India, Pune. I got connected with Vaishali again for the same. There were other artists as well. Ever since we started meeting almost every day. We used to work in our studios and meet in the evening and share our works and discuss. The discussions were so intense that sometimes we ended up fighting. Later in 1997, we started exhibiting our works in Café Sunrise, Deccan, Pune. The idea came from reading about the café’s in Paris and how artists met every day. I had invited other artists as well and tried to create that atmosphere. After a while, I realized that only two of us remained in those café discussions. It took a while for us to understand that we were not just in love with art but also with each other.
The journey became interesting with going deeper into our practices, meanwhile, I was awarded a fellowship by the Government of India and after a couple of years, Vaishali was also awarded the same. We both were working on a certain hypothesis for our respective project during the tenure of the fellowship. Those were really interesting days as we were creating our imagery and the philosophy towards life.
Vaishali started working with her signature fabric assemblages experimenting with fabric and she was awarded a National award for one of her works. On the other hand, I had chosen not to send any of my works to any art competition since my college days. However, I was fortunate enough to be directed and guided by artist Vijay Shinde. That was the time when I got an opportunity to interact with Great Masters like M F Husain, Gaitonde, Raza, Akbar Padamsee. Tyeb Mehta, Souza, Krishen Khanna, Prabhakar Barwe, Prabhakar Kolte, Ramkumar. I distinctly remember an incident when Vaishali and I visited the opening show of the National Gallery of modern art, Mumbai. Souza was present in the gallery, we had a great chat with him. I got the poster of that show which had Souza’s work printed on it and requested him to sign the poster. He looked at Vaishali and said ‘you sign first’ and then he signed on the poster. There are hundreds of incidents and dialogues I could go on which were shaping us both.
We got married in the year 2007 and the reason was to spend more time together and paint, discuss, fight… the time we spend together when we are not in the studio is unpredictable. If we want to discuss things we just go for a drive undecided. We both love things ranging from roadside joints anywhere to the Musee D’Orsay in Paris. Art Being the binding factor, life becomes extremely enjoyable. Another common element is that we always thought of becoming artists from childhood.
The art world has changed drastically over the period and we have witnessed the whole thing changing rapidly. There are several opportunities and there are so many platforms to express and exhibit. The acceptance is wider than before. But the only thing which I think is missing is the madness about your work, the necessity to share is extremely important and that is exactly what can explain our journey together.
