JohnyML: Valsan, you have always preferred the word ‘age’ as the title of your works. The latest show is titled ‘NewClearAge’. Some of the works done during the 1990s have titles like ‘Bronze Age’?

Tsunami by Valsan Koorma Kolleri

Valsan Koorma Kolleri: First of all let me tell you, these are conceptually my age/s. I believe in the historical process. Pre-historic days onwards the creative process has been happening. And I believe that I am a part of that process. Neither the beginning nor the ending. I am just a part of the continuum.

NewClearAge is about clearing up this in this historical process. I think it is about clearing up of many things of our own times. We need clarity. Without clarity we cannot go further. I find everything, whether it is knowledge or words, in our living time. Names also come from there.

JML: Is there any particular pun on this coinage, ‘newclearage’? It sounds like Nuclear age…

VKK: If you say so. Nuclear Age and NewClearAge are just words. I feel that I have achieved the concept developing in me through the use of such a coinage. It is about getting a clear point. My contemporaries would also get the same experience and knowledge through this name. To reach the NewClearAge I have gone through several ages like Bronze Age, Stone Age, Sculpture Age, Drain-Age and Pilgrim-Age. Then the NewClearAge happened. So it is totally an expression of the artist, if I am one. As a sculptor I cannot impose my ideas on any body nor can I ask anybody to create ideas for me. I practice art with the basic education available in our country. I think, it has been and I have been quite sincere to make the best out of it. With that education I proved myself to be a sculptor and I believe that if I can sculpt, anybody can also sculpt. I try to prove this through my works and attitude.

JML: There seems to be a conscious effort to create irony or paradox in naming the individual sculptures in this show also. Like Meshroom, Laddoer, etc…could you please explain?

VKK: To begin with, let me tell you I learned English in Malayalam, which is my mother tongue. I find my mother tongue strong enough to translate any other dominant language. I am at ease with the language I have and I prepare myself to use another language to speak to my contemporaries who belong to another linguistic units. Titles of my works are born along with the works . I do not use ‘untitled’ often. My titles too are sculpture-sque.

JML: That means you create a double language in your practice to convey the multiplicity of ideas that you want to convey?

VKK: The origin of sculpture practice should be traced in pre-historic times. Even before people learned writing and reading, they learned techniques to sculpt. If you look at pre-historic and ancient sculptures, you can see that the makers of those sculptures were at peace with the medium that they chose to express themselves. They understood the language quite well. They did not make many mistakes in their renderings. They believed in the language of sculpture.

Today you are not free to do many things the way you want. We have to listen to so many things and we have to take care of so many things while sculpting. Even the music, the recorded music that you listen to while you make your works influence you. It can dictate your mood. In this sense, sculptural language is not an innocent language. It has got many edges. One has to understand this language the way one wants. It is open and closed at the same time. One has to negotiate with the artistic language in order to get into the core of the art. In my view, this is a liberal language too. One does not need a big brother to explain it. However, at times, you need the sculptor himself to intervene and make the viewers understand the language he has created.

JML: You are an artist who has taken bronze as your medium but you were never a purist like many other sculptors. You mix up many mediums to arrive at your result. Why is it so?

Work By Valsan Koorma Kolleri

VKK: I studied at the College of Crafts and Art in Madras. In the first year of my education itself, I understood the properties of bronze as a medium. It enthralled me with its charm and challenge. The Madras Museum has a great collection of Chola Bronzes (sculptures). I studied them quite closely. Though they were the final products of a very tedious process, I could feel the strength of that process. I experienced it in my senses. I used the facility that the college provided me. I explored the possibilities of bronze there. I did everything right from making wax moulds, de-waxing, casting, kiln making, pouring, etc. In this process, I realised the power of the medium. I experienced its power to fuse and condense time in it.

I taught in the Fine Arts Faculty of Baroda for some time. I continued with my experiments there also. When I was in Baroda, someone stole 33 bronze sculptures from me. These works were earlier exhibited in the Madras Museum. I invited so many people for the show. Very few people from the art scene came to see the works. Then I went to the blind schools in the city and invited all the blind students to come and ‘see’ my works. The school authorities brought the children. They ‘saw’ the works. We, people with eyes were merely looking at the works. But those children were really seeing them. This experience changed my medium and works.

When I lost those sculptures I felt a great pain. Then I realised that I was not a loser. I had not lost my rhythm of thought. None can steal that from me. I recognised the fact that any material or medium that I chose had the same value as bronze. And the limitation, which time created on any material was just basic. I understood that all mediums have their own further lives and possibilities. So I started valuing anything, which was discarded. Art and only art as a living language and lived language has the strength to speak to the coming generations. Even though there is a bronze sculpture, one would spend only a few minutes in his lifetime to see it. Similarly, any material you see, the value remains in your heart and it will express to the coming generation.

JML: Latterite and new wool… If I ask you once again, how do you select these materials?

VKK: Laterite is like my mother tongue in a way. In Malabar, it is easily available. It improves with time. The light and moisture help its growth and strength. And in my expressions you would have noticed, I use a minimum of two materials, for example bronze and stone, wood and terracotta, etc, since bronze is there you see stone thoroughly and vice versa. So if there is another material that functions as a counterpart to my work of art, I believe that you are able to see both the materials in the best way. Total understanding of a material will solve half the problems involved in the process and the skill and sculpting ability will prove the remaining part. No material is bad. An artist’s duty is to make the best use of material, time, situation and space.

JML: Valsan, your choice of material looks very traditional at times and even the forms you create look very traditional. But something is there in your works that poses a challenge to tradition. As a viewer I am not able to say what exactly it is. But there is something that destabilises some part of tradition in your works?

VKK: I do not know whether you have observed my earlier work exhibited during the beginning of the new century. It was titled ‘How Goes the Enemy?’ After completing that work, I understood that time is just a tool to measure or communicate – like a world map does about the world. If you remove time from our system, I understand that whatever art happened in the world happened in a given short period of time. That means when the artist understood the need of art as an expression. So for me, art is not new and the new is not art. And it is up to the spectator to come with an empty mind to observe things, which they do not understand (perhaps difficult art).

JML: Is it deliberate that you subvert the new into art and art into new…?

VKK: If you call me as a contemporary artist, as I said earlier, I am not isolated from the contemporary times and happenings. I am also part of ‘today’. And I do believe that I have a duty and responsibility. Even an insect born in the earth has a duty to perform. I am trying to find reason for my life and existence.

JML: Here you sound quite philosophical in expressing your existence. Can I read your works in the same light?

VKK: Exactly, from the very beginning I was interested in philosophies, mathematics and science, which affect life. My works reflect my understanding of these things. So it is the viewer’s duty to analyse and understand in their own convenient time and space if the space is open for them like this exhibition, the NewClearAge. In art, I feel even the weakness of an artist should be given equal importance to the knowledge which he is claiming as an expression.

JML: You use feminine metaphors in your works and also in explaining your philosophy…

VKK: You might have observed my earlier series called ‘anima animus’. For me it is a very clear expression. I am a child of my mother and father. All the divisions as male and female in our society are created by the existing norms of the society. In this exhibition I have deliberately tried to bring out the feminine aspect. Mother Goddess is a very fond concept that I have from the very beginning. For example, my formula of understanding things is like this when I see the sky, I can be the sky; when I see a painting, I am the painting; when I see the stone, I am the stone; when I see you, I am you. This way, like Zen in one’s lifetime, one has the possibility of having millions of lives. I am a woman and a man.

JML: You look at environment with the same passion …Your works in the Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi, Nirmiti Kendra Trivandrum and so on stand evidence to this…

VKK: My works belong to a metaphysical plane. Even if I am physically invited to a camp I cannot shut down all the doors, which literally opened up in all my ‘ages’. So the environment itself can turn into a palette for me. And the palette itself would turn into art if you otherwise limit your material and space.

JML: If someone calls you an environmentalist, would you agree with it?

VKK: In a way I would agree with that. But at the same time I am not sure of it always. I am reborn in every space where I have freedom and I have the freedom to choose and function the way I want and so far in our country I have not found any control over it by any power. Artist should exactly understand the freedom and they are artists.

JML: Do you think that your contemporary artists are free in this sense?

VKK: I do not think so. My joy is to see others’ art. I know that art speaks on its own and we practice to listen to it. So the process is always going on. Only thing there are some obstacles that slow down a generation of artists. I strongly believe that without artists of any kind, the world will not move further and we have to borrow ideas from other places. It would be more economic and healthier to have art education as a compulsory subject in our school curriculum.

JML: You are like a nomad, who does not stick to a place. But you belong and become. Could you please tell me how do you do this?

VKK: Nomad… sounds interesting. When I do not work I feel that I get into a void, so I do get into an absolute relaxation and it proceeds to anything as you call it. My responsibility is not only doing art but I also have a strong urge to reach out to people through right vibes. For that I need clarity. My belonging is in connecting with the people. And it is my becoming also.

JML: What is your current project of Silpa Paddiam?

VKK: Basically I am making a boat for myself. In this boat, I believe that people can find their space to make their journey or make my journey a better one. Shilpa Paddiam means Sculpture Education. It is a place where good water, ayurvedic healing process, kalari practices, martial arts, yoga and meditation, practising craft to reach art, observation, participation, criticism and progress will happen by itself. This is in Malabar where I was born. When my father wrote his will, he gave this place to me. In the last few years, I have been working towards turning this place into a kind of an institution where I can learn and teach further. I have decided to use this space as natural as I could and people who are not able to get admission anywhere in learning fine arts can come here and study art. This is a place, as you mentioned earlier, of becoming.