When Less is More

Acclaimed watercolourist Prashant Prabhu says it wasn’t a sudden reaction, or a personal revolt to go the minimalist way on a certain day, but a long process involving a lot of observation and thinking
TEXT: TEAM ART SOUL LIFE

He could not go to an art school and judging by that definition, it makes him self-taught. But renowned watercolourist Prashant Prabhu says self-taught carries certain notions of being amateur, or one for whom art is a side hustle. “People assume that a self-taught artist is rarely a pro and mostly not a full-time artist. I am a full-time artist in the strictest sense. No commercial work, no taking classes. I paint, nearly daily and sell art as and when possible. And that has been my sole source of earning for nearly two decades now,” says the Mumbaikar.

Prabhu says being a good or rather brilliant student sometimes is a bane when you want to choose a career in creative fields, which are not considered a choice for such “potentials”. He says, “Family background matters. So, it happened that I did post-graduation in commerce in the best college in Mumbai, i.e., Poddar, with quite an ease. But all the while I was painting. Winning 42 prizes for college in three years in fine arts at intercollegiate level made it easy for me to neglect certain constraints on normal students.” When he passed out, he already had a couple of small solo shows in his name. “Small shows, but they gave me a few more years to struggle. So, I never decided to be an artist and that too full-time,” he says. “It seemed like a natural progression to me.” Prabhu says there is a misconception among artists who don’t know him well that being self-taught, he advises against art college education. “Nothing can be further from the truth. Art school education is a must but not in a way that most advise to take it,” he says. “As a landscape painter, that too in watercolours, I didn’t miss much in a larger sense. Landscape is hardly taught in any art school. It is more of a submission subject and many teachers actively dissuade promising students from painting landscapes.”

During that whole time span of six-seven years between his graduation and till 1999, he did try everything he could. “I thought oils, being not taught in school, was a serious medium. I tried acrylics too and also charcoal and pastels. How naïve I was! And learning by trial and error is hard,” he gets candid. “It is His Grace I feel that I have an inbuilt proficiency over the ‘wash’. It came naturally to me.

But to know that you have a special talent, how to hone it into individual style, to learn that on my own, required a lot of thinking and introspection. But then I knew that I am good at watercolours only after trying everything. Life teaches you if you are ready.” It never occurred to him to do anything else apart from painting. “I never did a job, but the decision was a tough one. As I was born in a Gaud Saraswat caste known for banking and hotels, family members hinted at good job opportunities in banking fields especially,” he says, adding, “But I knew that it would have been suffocating. Not doing any regular job means not getting married. Never had any relationships to break either. And frankly, it was just never on my radar. I knew well, if I wish to take this path, I will need to compromise in ways others will seldom understand.” Prabhu says even some fellow artists in admiration say that I never compromised. “Yes, I didn’t with art. But made so many compromises with the rest of things in life,” he says.

Apart from constant questions about the future from people around, there were always issues of finding opportunities. “A tag of self-taught is hard to shake, but the tag of ‘landscape painter’ was also a kind of tag,” says the artist. “And not to shake it off and ‘evolve’ towards a more ‘mature’ art form. My refusal to do so became a hurdle and my daily painting was seen and is still seen as not ‘good for the market’. All that became a kind of one struggle – to go against the normal.” Struggle against norms of landscape through his own thinking and against the norms of the art world in general when landscape is slightly looked down upon. “It is an art form not mature enough for serious painters,” he adds.

Prabhu says he paints nearly every day and the reasons are many and intertwined. “As said earlier, not accepting jobs gives a freedom to paint and learning on my own needed a lot of practice. It was a joy to paint every day and now it is indeed a sadhana. Day feels complete and fulfilling when that day’s painting comes out great. If not, it is a learning experience and introspecting what went astray, why the painting didn’t happen,” he says. “The meditation background helps.” Again, talking about struggles, he says the competitive streak and jealousy shown by artist ‘friends’ was a shock which carried him first into sadness. But before depressing feelings could set in, meditation came into his life. “Being single carried its own issues as any normal man and meditation gave a lot of help. Knowing Osho’s teachings is the best thing that happened to my life after embarking on a painterly way of life,” says the artist. “So, meditate daily, paint daily, paint meditatively. Being a professional surviving on art needs attention to selling, and making a name is also part of the journey. And yes, days of train journeys when going for landscape trips. Anyway, I never travel for leisure; it is always a painting trip!”

Prabhu says part of his struggle was with traditional mindset in the landscape field itself. Landscape of today carries on the impressionist traditions of the 18th and 19thcentury, he says. “It was a revolution then. Artists broke shackles of romantic studio traditions but we still insist on location painting. Why? Times have changed. Advent of photography and modern painting materials should have induced changes,” he says. “Use of photographs is still a taboo for most! Still, the overall landscape genre has kept itself to the ‘depiction’ mode of the scene seen in front.” Despite all claims by artists that they leave unwanted elements and keep it simple, the inherent need to depict, render scenes and things in that scene has kind of kept the landscape in stagnation mode, he says. “The imagery remains somewhat similar depending on the area or ‘school’ one belongs to. Everyone paints ‘what is expected’ in a landscape or cityscape. Most follow the masters they worship. Earlier, it used to be Indian masters and now, due to accessibility, international ones.” That made things a bit worse in a way, he says. “At least the practice of on-the-spot impressionism makes you stick to Indian reality. Following world masters create Indian landscapes with imagery which is not at all from here!”

Prabhu says the way a contemporary artist thinks about art, it’s imagery, and execution remains only the practical aspect of expressing that thought and ideas, the whole process seems absent in this genre. “The search revolves around subjects and places. No one searches for individuality or one’s own visual language. The discussions hover over techniques and in case of watercolours on materials,” he says. And amid all these traditions and standards, once someone gets a good method, technique or imagery, that seems ‘different’, they make it their signature style. “Then they repeat themselves all their lives.

Methodology ‘signature’ is understandable, which is common in abstract artists too; but signature subject? Majority of signature styles in the field of landscapes are frankly about certain kinds of subjects or some dazzling technical mastery,” he explains. “It is more of a novelty factor than a deep thought about path finding.” So, having a certain knack with the medium, but not happy to toe the line, a lot of observation and thinking went on. All led to going away from depiction mode, beautiful scene rendition to finding his individual visual language. “It was a long, long process and I didn’t actually decide to go the minimalist way on a certain day. It was not a sudden reaction. It was certainly not a personal revolt,” he informs. “Landscape is after all a genre of painting and any painting will not grow unless composition is given due importance. The way a certain ‘scene’ should get viewed, in various angles and importantly how I compose it in the space (of the artwork) became my thinking process. Slowly bold washes receded into being a support cast and composition and space division took precedence over rendition.” He says while doing all this, he made it a point not to follow any past master while keenly criticising his own work. “All the artworks that didn’t satisfy got discarded and I judged my art most harshly. Harsh enough to burn hundreds on Holi every year. Only those which are worth showing and exhibiting were kept,” he says.

His whole approach, which is minimalist, was the fruit of all this. “I will rather have a signature approach and art philosophy than a signature subject or technique as my “style”. Hence, over the years, after being a total watercolourist, I happened to paint many different themes, subjects and compositional styles,” Prabhu says. Leaving a lot of white paper was once his ‘signature’ and for some time ‘very muted colour palate’ was. But all the while, even in cityscapes, the scene in front or in photograph is only there to help him ‘compose’ a painting. Now for the past few years, like in search of mystique, the whole scene is imaginary. “The memories do help, but not taking help of any reference point like photos gives a freedom which normally I didn’t get,” he says. “All said and done, photo or the place in front influences and simplification in rendering takes a lot out of your thinking. Painting only through imagination is freeing. But then I am not a surrealist either. All my imaginary landscapes pivot towards a real world of ours.”

Not just landscape traditions, the rules and traditions of watercolour medium like not using opaque colours in adherence of transparency and “it’s wrong to use black” were never followed. “There was never a question of breaking the rules of watercolour as I never followed them in the first place! And I know the way, the approach, is not exactly minimalist as some realistic expression is indeed there. Minimalist realism may be a better choice of words, but then it seems those two words contradict each other,” he says.

As mentioned earlier, Prabhu learnt the technical part by trial and error and he was doing his own tutoring. Then he met Vasudeo Kamath, renowned realist portrait and landscape artist. In very few meetings, or outings Kamath knew that unlike everyone else, Prabhuwas neither following normal landscape rules nor following him either. “When he came to know that even though I was self-taught, I had already exhibited solo five-six times and art was going to be my way of life, a bond was created.”

Here, he tells an anecdote: “A few years ago while talking to Samir da (Mondal, who also likes my work I think) he was praising Vasudeo Kamat and I replied he is my guru. He was puzzled. His answer was; but your art is so different from his or his students! I replied I said guru, not teacher. Samir da understood. Many of his students, sadly don’t.”

Prabhu talks about signature style here and mentions a couple of incidents. “As blessed with a bold wash since beginning, I was impressed by late Prof. P.A. Dhond, a master seascape painter. Skies in my landscapes were like his and in my first Jehangir show, while I painted urban silhouettes, my skies were compared with Dhond’s by critics in papers. My joy knew no bounds. Sir took me aside one day and simply said, “If your painting reminds viewers of any other artist, however big, 75% credit/ appreciation goes to him, only 25% is yours”. Prabhu could feel his sadness and caring for his wellbeing. “I left that ‘style’ that very moment,” he says. Interestingly, his prices are not a mystery and they don’t change with clients’ deep pockets or his currency. “They remain the same in my studio, in galleries, in India and abroad online,” the artist informs. “Like many independent artists, I don’t grudge galleries their share. So prices are open and for all to see. GST is a fact of life. Incidentally, a major part of my sales happens online outside India. And GST registration is a must for exports now. Whether it is right to put GST on art is debatable and this is not the place to voice my opinion.”