PARA

We know and identify people around us with their faces, even

though there are many other gestures that may denote us. It is no

wonder then that artists since thousands of years have been

painting heads of gods, kings, loved ones and even their pets to

express their experience of cohabitation. Sahil’s whole body of

work is his experience of people around him which he defines with

bold, wide-eyed, intense coloured faces. His faces or heads are

deeply emotional, they exude immense expression and are

paintings of his experience. In these terms they cease to be

attached to the people or their bodies and become individual

entities.

Sahil’s compositions are different, if not unique in their approach.

He treats the whole surface of the canvas/paper end to end to

draw his exuberant drawings with thick brush strokes. Many times,

he covers the swap of hair with a single brush stroke, or swipe of a

knife and then treats the eyes, nose with equal dexterity. The faces

are what people are for him, not what they look like. They are

Sahil’s portraits, not portraits of people. In a sense, these are

mindscapes. There are no models. It is the whole society that

proves as inspiration, subject matter to him. Sahil has created his

own language, and these paintings are his conversations, essays.

Like the abstract form of language in Indian Dhwani Siddhanta,

what we see are abstract conversations in these paintings, these

are in their initial parā form, make complete sense to Sahil, but we

have to indulge into learning it, making it our own vaikhari.

Sahil’s forte are his colours. So much are these colours embedded

in his creative process that these could very well be simply abstract

expressionist renderings. His spontaneity and sensual does not

thus follow the principles that do not bother him, his impressions

harmonious with the final portrait. His choice of colours is thus

quite a bit of saturated hues rather than tints or shades. Sahil, it

seems, sees people through colours, and they are the colours that

represent the personalities of the faces, that have deep associations

in his intuitions. It is endearing to see how one could be so simplistic

about sensual experiences. At this point it becomes essential to

mention that Sahil is specially gifted to see more than an average

person; because he sees and listens with his eyes. And that almost

all his portraits are without ears, with wide eyes or contemplating

with closed eyes, something which he does perceptively.

Snehal Tambulwadikar Khedkar