EMERGING ARTIST OF INDIA 2000

WILSON D'SOUZA profiles Theodore Mariano Mesquita, who was recently declared as the Emerging Artist of India 2000,at the Harmony Show held at the Nehru Center in Mumbai.

Art as we understand it, in its varied hues has the property to transcend the boundaries of contention, into a supernal vista of significant expressions. Indian contemporary art is one of the most vibrant movements in the art world today, manifesting a profusion of diverse talents. To harness these diverse talents and promote them, numerous exhibitions are held in the country, the most important one being in Mumbai called the Harmony Show.

The Harmony Show 2000, organised by the Reliance Industries Limited (Textile Division) is today regarded as the most prestigious art happening in the country's annual art calendar. The Harmony Show began five years back with an objective to encourage and promote the country's young, unrecognised artists. By bringing together the art of young, talented artists from all over the country, the Harmony Show today serves as a platform for upcoming artists to showcase their works along with those of the masters. In the process the Harmony Show has over the years gradually drawn in so much talent that it has become a truly comprehensive art exhibition, offering visitors a truly rare experience.

This year an accomplished artist from Goa, Theodore Mariano Mesquita was awarded the excellence award, as the emerging artist of India 2000, recently held at the Nehru Center in Mumbai. He is the first and only artist from Goa to be bestowed this honour till date, incidentally he is also the youngest artist to be awarded this prize. This year Harmony Show invited around 140 upcoming and prominent artists of the nation. Major artists such as Anjolie Ela Menon, Bhupen Khakar, Jehangir Sabavala, Satish Gujral, S.H.Raza, M.F.Hussain amongst others distinguished artists were present with their creations at this premier cultural happening of India.

Theodore as an artist, defines his work in varied media, combining and complementing style and technique between a painter and printmaker of visible alacrity. His work has a definite accentuation on drawing with an enduring eye for detail in the purest humanist tradition. He is one of the pioneering artists in India in the field of digital art where he infuses cutting edge technology into art. This was very evident in his exhibition of digital lithographs 'World Without End', presented by the international cultural institution Fundacao Oriente in 1998.

Theodore's images are intense in their assertion, as best described by the former Director of the Fundacao Oriente in Goa and renowned Portuguese scholar, Dr. Paulo Varela Gomes "Théodore's works will stand out as images worth remembering and keeping, maybe because of the mysterious way in which they convey the artist's obsession (at least as far as we know…). But mysterious for the artist too, I am sure, because an image conveys obsessions (or passions and fears) but also transforms them into something else, something to a certain extent unconscious, something which no longer belongs to the artist."

Theodore graduated in Fine Arts from the University of Mumbai, from the Goa College of Art in 1988. Subsequently he attained a Master in Painting from the renowned Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in 1990. In 1998 on invitation he completed a Residency in Drawing and Painting at AR.CO: Centro de Arte e Communicaco Visual, in Lisbon, Portugal.

Theodore's works have been exhibited the world over on invitation and competition. From showing at the 5th International Biennial Print Exhibition, Taipei in Taiwan in 1991, Theodore has shown in Japan, Finland, Poland, Romania, Portugal, Brazil, Russia, Bulgaria, Egypt and South Africa. He has also participated in many significant art exhibitions in India on invitation like the Bharat Bhavan Biennials of Contemporary Indian Art in Bhopal, Lalit Kala Akademi,s International Triennale and "Intuitive Logic II" presented by the Heart foundation. Theodore has also traveled widely in Europe, and has attended and participated on invitation in an exhibition on Goan contemporary printmakers presented by the Fundacao Julio Resende in Porto, Portugal.

Theodore's enduring experience in the world of visual art is poignant and significant. It is therefore not surprising to many, that Theodore should have been awarded the Excellence Award as the Emerging Artist of India, 2000, after more than fifteen years of consecration in this field. He attained this landmark amongst a galaxy of art luminaries of the country and is the first and only artist from Goa, till date, to have achieved this vantage position. Besides this award the Ministry of Human Resources & Department of Culture, Government of India in 1993, awarded Theodore the prestigious National Fellowship in Art and in 1998 the Fundacao Oriente, Portugal, awarded him a scholarship to complete a residency in Europe, This year's Harmony Show had a rather unusual theme - the communion between fashion and art. The sentiment that echoed at this year's show was the powerful schools of thought both in Ancient India and the present West see the human form as the canvas, and, clothes as the designer's interpretation of the wearers soul.

Theodore Mesquita and renowned fashion impresario from Goa, Wendell Rodricks were invited to present their interpretation on the theme - Art and Fashion - which was an attempt to explore the relationship between the human body and clothes. True to their creative selves their collaborative installation was a cut above the rest, their piece de resistance was called 'corpus'. It incorporated four costumes designed by Wendell Rodricks, inspired from the works of Theodore Mesquita. These costumes were dressed on mannequins that were suspended diametrically above an illuminated giant translight of Mesquita's work. Translating the very soul of expression and exploring the symbiosis between fashion and art.

Theodore Mesquita has been dedicatedly involved in the development and propagation of visual art in the state from 1983, onwards. In 1990 he and some like-minded individuals founded "The Goan Art Forum" the premier artists collective from Goa, consisting of artists, art educationists and theoreticians. Theodore's vision and dynamism has steered The Goan Art Forum into an all encompassing synergy, a synergy of insights, in a concentrated decade, of dedication, experience and evolution. Under his able guidance The Goan Art Forum has the distinction of presenting eighteen consistent, significant art exhibitions from it's endowment till date in, Goa, Bombay, Kerala, Delhi and Portugal.

Theodore Mesquita has also lectured in drawing and painting for advanced classes at the Goa College of Art. He started his profound career as a pedagogue at the age of 22 in 1990 and later quit his career midway in 1994 to concentrate his energies to contribute to the development of visual art. Which has been very fruitful for the Goan art scenario.

Theodore, who reveals the human body very resolutely, has the world in his vision. Yes, he definitely cherishes and welcomes India's excellence award in art. He is now acclaimed as one of the country's prominent artist in the top league. He very eloquently describes his work in his inimitable manner "…. My work delves into the archetypal recognition of a broad psychological landscape, redefining the pluralistic cultures, which connect and discerns the existence of the times and space of our lives, those that have definite sounds and visions, pregnant with supernal meaning. These I connect comprehend and mitigate forward to feeling and meaning electing a dialogue between the absent, present and viewed. The images contained in my painting are steered deep in faith, in the art and covenant of picture making, yes! Rooted in continuum, of the human, the singular, the communal, the one, the many, in the presence of its histories in the presence of our lives."

Theodore furthermore affirms "I primarily am a figurative painter and am concerned with the body language of diverse cultural proportions, which have varied free associations of significance. I put this into practice by bringing into play in the pictorial space, the use of signs and symbols of infinite meaning."

Theodore's works reverberates with the potency to elicit notions of identity that have been constructed through specific representations of the body in art. He is strongly rooted in the finest humanist tradition of the proper study, rarely visited by artists of his generation. The depiction of the body in art has always played an axial role in the manifestation of the 'self'.

The primary concern of artist's through the ages has been defined through the combative posture of regaining the self through the encompassment of boundaries. Boundaries, that restrict the human emotion to perceive alternate realities, those that are concerned with all human activity, animate or inanimate. As these are the central issues that have always afflicted the human condition. Mesquita's work proffers in this direction. As an artist he addresses these issues of contemporary significance, of purpose and import to our lives and times. The body specific culture in his art is a concentrated effort to decontextualise the regimentation of conditioned sensibilities.

Mesquita is truly an artist of the world, as he has in his vision through art, a spirited devotion to extend the periphery of demarcated boundaries and the same time to contain the erosion of them, a dichotomy that provides an interaction and understanding of exploration.

Mesquita's art elucidates in sagacity, and arrives at a celebration of meaning.