Between Munch and Ganesha
Text by Margrete Abelsen
Illness and the bed make up the starting point for a series of expressive gouache drawings by Nirmal Singh Dhunsi. The series was commenced in 2010 and has continued to this day, also serving as a way of coming to terms with a stressful situation. Bedridden because of back problems, he continued to draw, turning the bed, man and divinities into central elements. By means of sweeping pencil lines the characters seem to be literally tied to their beds. From the point of view of the bedridden, Singh Dhunsi started to reflect on the symbolism of the bed and the different connotations in the West and in the East of other everyday objects. A hint of humour is never absent, in spite of the dismal situation.
Having grown up and lived part of his life as poster and miniature painter in rural Punjab, India, and part of his life as artist in Trondheim, Norway, Singh Dhunsi belongs to and has intimate knowledge of two rather different cultures. His unique position gives him the possibility of juggling and balancing between the knowledge«inside» and the distance «outside» both cultures. He has created a characteristic visual language that mixes cultural expressions and personal experiences on the one hand with references to religious rituals and Western art history on the other. As spectators we are invited into a playful, active and expressive universe where surprising constellations take shape. As the constellation Munch and Ganesha.
In Edvard Munch’s «Selvportrett mellom klokken og sengen» (1944)( Selfportrait between the clock and the bed), painted the year before he died, Munch has portrayed himself standing between a grandfather clock without hands and a bedspread with a distinct geometrical pattern in white, red and black. Both the clock and the bed symbolize death and function as a memento mori. This painting, Munch’s last major work, constitutes an introduction for Singh Dhunsi’s own reflections on human transitoriness in general (and maybe his own in particular). But whereas Munch is preoccupied with inescapable death, Singh Dhunsi seems to focus on the will to live. As a consequence of the continuingly changing illness, the mood and the balance between the anguished and the humorous alters: in bad periods a chaos which includes mice and vultures appears to have taken over. The bed grows larger and the characters smaller. In good periods the characters have gotten rid of their chains to the bed; they stand up and start taking over the space. In Jasper Johns’ triptycon «Tantric Detail» (1981) we also find a reference to Munch’s bedspread. Here the pattern of the carpet is cut loose from its surroundings and made abstract through meditative repetition. At present one might say that Singh Dhunsi expresses himself in the field of tension between Munch and Jasper Johns.
In partly abstract, vibrating and energetic drawings, the depicted main character alternates between being divinity and man. Several images show a bearded Sikh, wearing a turban, in a meditation pose, and here and there we see the elephant god Ganesha, who in some of the drawings is depicted as being frightened by a flock of mice. Hindu writings tell us about Ganesha who is riding mice as a sign of humility. In this way, the original sign of humility in Eastern religion meets western Disney myths about elephants being afraid of mice, and new meanings arise. In the series the bed also appears in the shape of oriental rugs. The bed, which in the West is perceived as our most private furniture, is often used in social contexts in India, for instance as the place where one shares a meal – in this way the bed becomes a picture of western individualism and Eastern collectivism.
In his visual language Singh Dhunsi approaches the comic strip and he makes bold use of some of its elements, like conventionalizing, pure, bright colours, vibrating lines and, not least, humour. Superfluous details have been stripped away and each and every element has a symbolic significance. The individual drawing is independent and meaningful in its own right, but when put together they make up the panels of a complete story. From earlier on, Singh Dhunsi is known for his colourful, pearl-covered Masala paintings and for his Tandoori drawings where Hindu deities, Disney characters and art historical references make up a universe of Western abstraction and Eastern mysticism, high and low culture.
Actions that have become automatic or which are the results of indoctrination, are questioned, for instance the religious covering of deities or the tradition of the caste system which is still alive in today’s India. The tension between Western abstraction and the Hindu covering up is studied where the oppositions and the ambiguities in the different cultures mutually illuminate each other and continually shape new meanings.
Just like in the strips, one of the elements is texts: often notes and dates are scribbled on the drawings, as if they document the course of the illness or Singh Dhunsi’s reflections during the process. We observe a process where gradually, through a great artistic output, the bed dissolves, the bedspread turns into something abstract, and they are both about to vanish. Luckily, the illness seems to have got a happy ending: the characters rise from their beds, come to life and become bright-eyed and bushy-tailed once again.
Singh Dhunsi has apparently found his place, juggling between two cultures where the enigma of his own identity is a strength that continually generates new questions about human identity in general.
Translated into English by Birgit Kvamme Lundheim