Life takes time to unfold. It cannot be hurried. Only after years of frenziedly seeking pelf, validation and beating down the world’s doors to be let in, do we reach a point when stillness steals over the soul and whispers that serenity does not come from looking outside but was within all along.

No one knows this better than artist Sachin S Jaltare. There is a remoteness about his eyes, as if he can see beyond the obvious. His art proves that he can. He was in Bangalore recently to showcase his works at Time & Space gallery for contemporary art and the deep-rooted sense of stillness he exudes also permeated his works.
The balance of scale and line and colour apart, there is a poise in the paintings that has nothing to do with brush and palette. The large works awash with brooding charcoal blacks, tranquil whites and sporadic bursts of colour in a way sum up human life with its cosmic secrets, its sudden moments of enlightenment and its phases of vibrant energy.

The imagery in the work is not sharply delineated but is hinted at. With soft shadows and softer washes of light. The eyes of the meditative protagonists are always closed as if looking inwards. They have no sharp edges but they do not blur in the background either. They are inchoate yet clear, mute yet vocal. The recurrent theme of a roadside tamasha with a ‘madari’ and a monkey conveys multiple meanings. It conveys just how banal is our search for attention. It conveys that we are nothing but playthings jumping through hoops at the sound of a cosmic ‘Damroo.’ The ‘He’ in Jaltare’s work conveys rippling strength and powerful sinews while the ‘She’ is the Shakti to his Shiva, his perfect consort, the nurturing spirit that his life-force cannot exist without.

The works are layered both in terms of technique and content and yet stark and simple. Jaltare nods in agreement when he is asked if simplicity is the hardest thing to achieve in art. “Yes, it is,” he says and adds, “It took me 17 years to come so far. I went through a phase where I wanted to use a lot of colours and textures and show what I could do with the medium. I do not feel the need for that now.”

Jaltare also had to deal with the practical aspect of making a living out of art after passing out from Nagpur’s Chitrakala Mahavidylaya with a BFA in 1999. He says, “It is easier now to survive as people buy art more often now. But even today, artists struggle in some way or another. Sometimes it is external, sometimes internal. But I believe that good art comes from uncertainty. If I look at struggle as a difficulty, it will be hard. If I look at it as a challenge, it will be easy. I have been painting since I was a child and after my BFA, I freelanced for ad agencies to survive. Ten years ago, I decided to devote myself totally to my art. I had the conviction that I could do it and survive. I survived but it was only four years back that the breakthrough came.”

It is significant to note that he does not refer to a sold out show as a turning point but to his flash of self-awareness that changed his life and his art forever. “One fine day, after years of painting realistic works, I realized that my works did not express my inner life. They only recorded the external world. I realised that my goal should be to find my own style, something that expressed who I was from inside,” he recalls. He concedes however that finding yourself as a human being and an artist is a lifelong process but yes, he has grown and so has his work.

“Earlier I looked at the whole world as a painting...now a window has opened through which I can see the world within. That world is my painting now. Art evolves with time. Artists get mature. Their eye (for colour and line) gets mature. Tomorrow I may paint something completely different. For now, I use minimum line and minimum colour because there is no need to exaggerate what is,” he says.

He reacts with a smile to the fact that art was once the domain of the spirit and is today a market commodity, “Commercialisation of art helps to sell it and is important but the process of creation should not be guided by commercial considerations. You should not just paint something just because it sells. The commerce should take over only after the work is finished.”   

For someone so engrossed in the spirit, does the physical world intrude in his work?

He answers, “The turmoil in the world that we see today is part of life. But deep inside everyone, there is the peace of nothingness, there is a hollow space filled with contentment which reveals itself only if we look hard and deeply enough. Look at artists like Husain, Picasso, Yusuf Arakkal, Laxma Goud, Raza. They are great not just because they paint great art but because they know so much about life. They have a sincerity towards art and rich inner lives. If you have a  rich inner life, it will show through everything you do.” Like it shows through every brush stroke that Sachin Jaltare leaves in his wake.