Beginning with simple exercises in stone carving at professional stone carving workshops in Srinagar -Kashmir during 70s and later on working with other materials here at Jammu. I have come to a stage where I think medium does not matter too much. I state this as I have come to understand, that sculpture is a larger phenomenon of which a medium and its execution into a particular form is only a part. I don’t deny that a particular medium has a lot to play as long as the expression through a sculpture is concerned yet to each and every work there is a lot more beyond its medium. Perhaps the beauty in its potential to reveal truth. The potential to unite its own fragments for sure and of our existence may be, into a whole, that exudes a wide variety of meaning and function. The function of transcribing the world around. The function of transforming the ordinary into extraordinary and the function of widening connotations from particular to universal. As a culmination of this process we arrive at the formation of a ‘so called sculpture’. The expression ‘so called’ is used to indicate the shift the contemporary sculpture has undergone from its conventional format.
I have a strong trust in the area of human understanding that honours the ground on which we stand and also the other elements such as water, light, air etc. The understanding that honours the aspect of human belief itself. Certainly it is this trust which identifies may stimuli in terms of ordinary things, around imaginary and tangible, happenings, experiences, feeling of loss, memories and so on and his nostalgia arousing as a result and a whole chain of so many factors all together termed as life. The actual act of doing sculpture follows as response.
As a working sculptor, I consciously put these stimuli into use and try to direct my efforts in a particular manner, more often resulting into materialization of a ‘’so called sculpture”. Since an extensive and multi-layered process is involved between the contemplative and the conclusive stages, the final manifestation drifts considerably away from its source, particularly so in terms of form and matures into an autonomous entity with visible traits of, symbolic or ambiguous, express or metaphoric, spectacular or serene, rustic or scared nor anything with a presence and a space of its own.
Putting parts, segments or fragments together or at least indicating so, in my work is inherent to my nature and also upbringing. Conducting life as such has never been so smooth. There is always a lot of hard work too keep everything including my own self together. The effect manifests in my work in terms of piece put together, tied, sutured, nailed or placed in a manner to be related to each other.
Colour also is a significant aspect in my work. It may be a consciously chose colour of the working material itself or the colour applied on to the surface. It helps me to make my work more impactful objectively and communicative subjectively. Colour more than anything else generates a positive relationship between my work and the onlooker. Polishing at places and leaving the rest as raw and scribbling calligraphic, graffiti on the surface help me to depict traces and signs of transition of time right on the surface of my shapes. Certainly there is much more.
The resolution between imagination and the actual, the tension between fact the speculation the contradiction between absurdity and the logic and so on. The underlying force to keep the work on.