Larger Than Life

An extremely demanding and successful artist, Rameshwar Broota continues to stretch his own canvas so that it can arrive at the kind of flexibility he requires in order to set paint to his creation, says Rashme Sehgal.

- Rashme Sehgal

Seventy five-year-old Rameshwar Broota has a quiet presence. He sits in his meticulously maintained studio on the second floor of the Triveni Kala Sangam and speaks in a low, subdued voice. But there is nothing subdued about his work. It is cerebral. Hardhitting. Akin to a killer picking up a hatchet and slicing his victim’s skull in two. The primordial ape fighting for his space in the forests of the mind is part of the ‘Ape’ series. This gives way to the ‘Man’ series where desolate and vulnerable men are shown trying desperately to survive in the isolated spaces of our urban deserts. And then, he moves from this karmabhumi to explore the inner and external sinews of the human body. Heading the prestigious Triveni art department for the last five decades has given him a vantage view of just how Indian society and art have evolved after independence. “I joined Triveni Kala Sangam in 1967, more than 50 years ago. When I joined, the institution had just been built and the art department was set up. K.S. Kulkarni, the artist, was heading the Triveni art section, but he moved on to join the art department at Benaras Hindu University and I was brought in,” he recalls. Talking about the way art has evolved in these years, Broota says, “The sensibility has changed very fast. At that time there was no internet, no exposure to the west. Very few artists went abroad. Artists then were working in the traditional (mould) and also doing abstract art. But then gradually, with the coming of the biennales and the triennales, Indian artists started experimenting and started working in different materials, including in the area of installations.” Broota says, “I came into the art field with no background in this subject. I fantasised about joining the military or the police force, but I was also fond of sketching and my brothers encouraged me to join the Delhi Polytechnic (which subsequently came to be called the Delhi Co