Spectres populate artist Vikrant Bhise’s work. From Dalit Panthers to Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar to the Phules to the Buddha, his figures encompass the broad range of human and divine agitators against casteism in India. The work for an equitable society, launched millennia ago, is unfinished till today. However, as Bhise’s works show, it’s picking up pace, even breaching the upper-caste, upper-class walls of art galleries in Delhi and Mumbai.

Bhise presented his work at Anant Art Gallery in Noida in January 2024 and is part of a duo showing at Experimenter Colaba in Mumbai this month in ہم دیکھیں گے | We Will See. Alongside works by Sri Lankan artist Pushpakanthan Pakkiyarajah, Bhise is showing six large-scale artworks and 43 A4-sized panels. Bhise’s smaller works broadly fit into two categories: one is a charcoal series on sanitation workers, in which the figures are enveloped in a kaftan of volcanic ash. The other includes pages of the preamble of the Constitution, scribbled over with action scenes from news channels. A lathi charge, stone pelters and cops roughhousing protestors weave through earnest declarations such as “sovereign democratic republic” and “We, the people”. A day prior to the opening of the exhibition, Bhise sat down with Abhay Sardesai for a conversation at the Museum of Solutions in Mumbai, in which he said, “I don’t have to look for a subject because something is happening every day. Nandalal Bose had done beautiful designs [for the original], but my Constitution series shows the reality today.”

After taking two years to clear his 10th grade examinations, Bhise worked as a courier boy and loader for four years, before enrolling in Mumbai institutions such as the LS Raheja School of Art and Sir JJ School of Art. About this phase, he said, “How did labour enter my works? Through [my experience of] labour.” His largest work at Experimenter is Spectre of Killing – II, a mixed-media triptych with thickly outlined figures, reminiscent of the works of Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. The scene is of carnage: part stampede, part mob attack. A large tent and a rusty carpet are entangled with a faceless swarm as if enacting a kidnapping attempt. There are implements: sickles and rods, sticking through humans like pins in a voodoo doll. There are emblems: a Dalit Panther megaphone and a copy of the Constitution held aloft. In saturated shades of blue, brown and yellow, with two pained faces and no sign of blood, the work is a brooding, sobering look at how simple it is to strip a person of life and liberty. 

I don’t have to look for a subject because something is happening every day. Nandalal Bose had done beautiful designs [for the original], but my Constitution series shows the reality today. – Vikrant Bhise

Crowds, whether marchers or mourners, in chiffon saris or cotton kurtas and Nehru topis, make up the other significant works. On July 11, 1997, police opened fire on Dalit protesters in Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar, Ghatkopar, killing 10 and injuring 26. As an eyewitness and researcher, Bhise references this event frequently in his works. Black Dot on Constitutional Republic is a two-panelled work in oil. Several scenes collapse into a single frame: funeral portraits, rifle-toting cops, corpses laid down like mummies, tall fires and a throng of rudaalis (female criers). An aesthetic choice in Ambedkarism is the use of blue, stemming from the notion that everyone is equal under the sky. Bhise locates the macaw blues of Mumbai in ubiquitous iron sheets (locally known as chapras), ceramic tiles, Maharashtra police vans and street signs. Similarly, Gathering, Past-Present, Memorial for becoming and Commemorating figure for the Democratic Republic, all oils, carry these themes forward, reconstructing the climate of pain and dissent in the gallery.

Also included is a 23-minute excerpt from Anand Patwardhan’s documentary Jai Bhim Comrade (2011) and a bookshelf with essential Dalit literature such as Writings and Speeches by Dr Ambedkar, Joothan by Om Prakash Valmiki, The Persistence of Caste by Anand Teltumbde and Caste Matters by Suraj Yengde. Bhise’s works and the accompanying texts do the work of lowering our blindfolds on the subject of caste. As Sardesai said at the MuSo event, “That moment has arrived in the Indian painting scene when caste and its discriminations can be explored. Bhise’s works act as a parallel record in pursuit of the horizon of justice for all.” Blue, after all, is also the colour of dawn.

An alumnus of the University of Jaffna and a Fulbright Scholar, Pakkiyarajah’s installations are beautiful, detailed and desolate. Sri Lanka’s protracted civil war (1983-2009) turned the green oasis into a savannah of death. The ecocide that followed has been imagined by Pakkiyarajah as Mycelium and the Charred Landscape. Shaped like a pennant, constructed from rope, thread, acrylic, wood dust, wood glue and matte medium, the work faithfully recreates mycelium, the underground neural network of healthy forests. But, this one is cinder-black, with severed, frayed nerves and a hole in the heart. This is the running theme in his installations for the show. Hidden Mycelium in a Wounded Land I, II and IV take the shape of a soaring eagle (in black), a fallen eagle (in onion pink) and broken wings (in crimson red) respectively, with threads matted together like dreadlocks and the skein overrun with tumours. The works are a grisly snapshot of the doomsday message of our times: that the large-scale destruction of the natural world is truly an unwinnable war.

'We Will See' runs from July 26 – September 6, 2024, at Experimenter Colaba, Mumbai.