HIMMAT’S 90: Journey of An Artist | Himmat Shah
Curator's Note
After hearing the title 'Under The Mask,' what comes to our mind is the exposure of hidden feelings and expressions. We have to hide behind the mask the expression that discloses our feelings. When we are looking for other techniques to express the attitude of expression and its wanderings, the artist indulges in creating with brush and lines of colour and depicts all his worldly feelings through lines. My first acquaintance with Himmat Shah was at Shantiniketan. It was there that I looked at the artist's art for the first time. The geometric structure and lines of the sculptures he created. The assemblage of scratches and lines in three-dimensional form is like the gathering of many two-dimensional images from each page. Combining bold lines and cubism, he has shown a new horizon of Indian sculpture history. My closeness with him deepened when I became the project director of his biographical film, Portrait of an Artist. In that time, listening to the unknown side of his life, I sorted a struggling character. In the motion of bohemian life, the sign of creation of the artist blooms from the concealment of inquiry and search. This successful artist has broken the barriers of traditional education and presented his ideas with determination.
Today, despite being ninety years old, he is still found in the form of a free boy intoxicated in creation. In our life, when everybody was scared and hid in the corner of the house due to the outbreak of an epidemic, the scratch that the artist cut in search of creation in that time is being presented in this exhibition. Leaving aside the so-called watercolor and acrylic mediums, he stuck to using ink, brush, and pen. For him, the use of ink on paper takes a strange pleasure in changing the surface of the brush, from which he finds the joy of creation. According to Joan Miro, "The painting rises from the brushstrokes as a poem rises from the words. The meaning comes later." The images of the artist titled 'Under The Mask during the Covid period is so similar. Each picture is connected with the other in a strange rhythm. Sometimes he took the form of a python, sometimes he took the form of a face full of questions. Sometimes, two hands are raised in a relaxing pose. His image captures countless cubic lines and the artist himself. From the window to the garden of his house or the vase on the table or the reflection of the quarantine period of life. In every picture, Himmat Shah has left the impression of his three-dimensional philosophy. A strange bonding of East and West took place in his 'Under The Mask' series.
Today, despite being ninety years old, he is still found in the form of a free boy intoxicated in creation. In our life, when everybody was scared and hid in the corner of the house due to the outbreak of an epidemic, the scratch that the artist cut in search of creation in that time is being presented in this exhibition. Leaving aside the so-called watercolor and acrylic mediums, he stuck to using ink, brush, and pen. For him, the use of ink on paper takes a strange pleasure in changing the surface of the brush, from which he finds the joy of creation. According to Joan Miro, "The painting rises from the brushstrokes as a poem rises from the words. The meaning comes later." The images of the artist titled 'Under The Mask during the Covid period is so similar. Each picture is connected with the other in a strange rhythm. Sometimes he took the form of a python, sometimes he took the form of a face full of questions. Sometimes, two hands are raised in a relaxing pose. His image captures countless cubic lines and the artist himself. From the window to the garden of his house or the vase on the table or the reflection of the quarantine period of life. In every picture, Himmat Shah has left the impression of his three-dimensional philosophy. A strange bonding of East and West took place in his 'Under The Mask' series.
According to Himmat Shah, a true artist puts aside his academic education and enjoys the joy of his creation with free thinking. That's why the creation of Himmat is beyond time. This successful artist who grasped Indian philosophy and perception embodied life in terracotta and bronze and marked that effectiveness in his paintings as well.
Now, he has prepared his dream studio and wants to develop his ideas through new experiments in his creative laboratory. Himmat Shah wants to enjoy creating his art in different mediums like lithograph, etching, terracotta, bronze, and even in stone carving.
- Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya