Black, Brown & The Blue

A casual conservation with Shuva Da evolved into a major discussion regarding his retrospective, an initiative that we all wanted to be different in essence, rendition and process. I jokingly quoted Shiv Khera’s famous line, Winners do not different things, they do things differently’. An apt echo of the spirit behind the idea, which set the ball rolling.

Shuvaprasanna is a complete people’s person and it is a delight to see his enthusiasm and joie de vivre. He suggested that all his galleries should work together as one to make the retrospective and publication even more special. Without any delay he called up Kalpana Shah, Richa Agarval and Vijay Lakshmi Dogra, each of whom was equally enthusiastic and driven by his fervour, and a shape started emerging, Pramod Kapoor of Roli Books has perhaps been the greatest driving force in the project, we are lucky to have him and Priya Kapoor on board with us.

Once a basic idea and direction were in place, we met with curator-writer Sushma Bahl, who made a valuable suggestion stressing the need for substantial content that would correspond to the conceptual context of the retrospective and would find adequate reflection in the book as well. She related how, in the course of her travels, she had discovered that the reason our art books are not included by libraries abroad is the general perception that our coffee table publications, though high on picture and print quality, were lacking in research, substance and the multi-vocality of perspective that should typify all such textual representation. Based on this input, it was decided to bring together reputed scholars and writers whose contributions would make it a seminal book and a collector’s delight.

This book that finally took the avatar of Black and Brown and the includes full page colour reproductions of Shuva Da’s art works as well as a selection of personal photographs and other rare memorabilia along with in–depth, researched essays. It addresses the question of who Shuvaprasanna really is-of the man, his inspiration, his aesthetics, journeys and the spaces he occupies today in both artistic as well as personal terms. Having known Shuva Da for a long time I’ve observed that the colours black, brown and blue seem to have a special relevance in his life and work. They have been predominant in his approach and creativity, and have ‘coloured’, in more ways than one, the canvas of his life-black and brown emerge intrinsic to his artwork, and blue symbolizes the Goddess and romance.