Artists Directory >Douglas

"-In mud, water, burnt charcoal
-On paper stitched with glass shards, helms thread
-A kite in the wind."

Douglas obtained his Diploma in Painting from Govt. College of Arts and Crafts, Madras. Douglas seeks fresh exposure. One cannot go back on ones skills and sensitivity, and one need not. Precisely these have been expressive of the painter more than anything he might have done or undone with them. It is the reality which is created with it and the familiarity that it submits to that has to be passed through to keep clear and stay simple hearted. One would be clearer to oneself, Douglas argues in his current work, in the open language of uncompleted recollections and snatches of thought that occur. That leaves his craftsmanship to battle in these pictures with its own strengths and subtleties.

Douglas' arguments in his current series are acutely technical. It cannot be otherwise when the issue in it is technique itself. Any principled or poetic approach to the art of picture-making results inevitably in dissimulation's that divert the artist from what his mind is weighed with. But neither can he clear his mind of such stratagems altogether because nothing can take shape without some kind of devising.

Taking the situation truthfully in, Douglas works on his techniques, getting it to yield on its own and to acquiesce as it works on. It now interrupts itself as it works on. From being breathlessly on edge, Douglas turns conversational in these pictures, even awkwardly so at times. That probably is to feel poignantly for the lone, odd being which had been his from the beginning and through the transformations so far.

He has held 5 solo exhibitions mostly in Europe and has participated in several Group Shows in India and abroad: Indian Artists at Munich (1990-93), 9 Contemporary Artists at Arne Germinde Museum, Netherlands (1991); RIMBAUD-91 at Madras and Besancon, France; 7th Triennial at New Delhi (1992), Inden Vreemde-20 Kunstenaars die over Grenzen Gaan, Croningen (1995); Works in Ceramics at Gallery School, Amsterdam and Bombay (1995); Recent Trends in contemporary Indian Art at Vadhera Art Gallery, New Delhi (1995) and  WATERCOLOUR-A WIDE SPECTRUM at Bombay  (1995). He has received the Govt.of India Fellowship (1991-93 & 1994-96); the State Lalit Ala Akademi Award (1980 & 1990); Lalit Kala Akademi Research Grant (1989), National Award for Painting, New Delhi (1992); Invitation to work in Ceramics at the European Ceramics Centre, Netherlands (1994) and the Charles Wallace Trust Fellowship.

Collections

National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi and Kerala
Contemporary Art Museum of Contemporary Art, Madras
European Patent Amt Munich
Sakshi Gallery, Madras
Lotus Gallery, Amsterdam and in my private collections in India and abroad

Style

The hesitant artist as opposed to the reluctant messiah. Deep, dark works of the soul and blues. A wonder of the mind. His favoured medium is paper crushed, stitched and sand. His small format works are supreme. Douglas is also a well seasoned ceramist and mural painter.

Address: Studio and Residence: Cholamandal Artists Village, Injambakkam, Madras - 600 041 Tel: 499 09 06