Afour-foot tall black canvas stands in the middle of the Kala Academy’s art gallery with mingling shades of green, grey and gold. The
artist, Neville D’Souza, stands proudly next to his creation as he explains the use of actual powdered 24 karat gold. “I had powdered gold lying around at home. So, I thought why not put it to good use. Of course, a lot was wasted during the process, but I was impressed with the outcome of experimenting with gold,” he says. And it is this experimenting that drives the septuagenarian who’s spent most of his life in Mumbai’s busy advertising world. His passion for art began at a very young age as some of his pieces date back to over 30 years, but his desire to try everything and anything in his art is what sets him apart. Some years ago, D’Souza set out to paint the scenic charm of his hometown, Parra. The result of it was a clean, well structured painting of a tree blooming with flowers. But that wasn’t what the artist was looking for, and as soon as he was finished, D’Souza placed the still wet canvas out in the rain, “leaving the rest to nature”.
The end result, he says, is beyond anything he could have ever created on his own, as the acrylic paint clumped into blobs that gave the painting a
sort of 3D effect.
“Ultimately, the painting still had
all the necessary elements it is supposed
to have. I just used a different
method to get to it,” said the artist of
his raindrop patterning method.
One person who admired D’Souza’s
crazy side is Delhi-based fashion designer
Ritu Beri.
She offered to buy three of his
Pollack inspired paintings. The Pollack
paintings, named after American artist
Jackson Pollack, involves dripping or
sometimes throwing paint onto a canvas.
In D’Souza’ case, what Beri found
even more interesting was his concept
of taking this form of ‘action painting’
to the wooden frame as well.
Expressionism is one thing the artist
insists on and hopes people in India
realize its importance too.
“In school, you are made to draw
what the teacher tells you. Rain is
supposed to be blue, trees green, a
face is drawn a certain way. But a
child’s imagination shouldn’t be curbed
to this extent. They should be free to
paint what they see.” says D’Souza.
As part of the exhibition, that will
be on till September 16 at Kala Academy,
D’Souza will also put children
from the National Association for the
Blind (NAB) to work.
“These children are extremely talented
though they have limited vision.
So I will be giving them masks to
paint which will then be put together
on a black canvas.”
The exhibition, he says, is also his
way of thanking Goa for his inspiration
to paint and to coexist with younger
artists like Kolkata-based artist, Amit
Kumar Das, who will display nine of
his works that were inspired in Goa.
“Goa has everything an artist needs
for inspiration. I spent a year here
and I fell in love,” says Das who has
previously worked as a film maker
and animator in Mumbai. Das who
only recently began canvas painting
says D’Souza’ methodology is something
he too would like to follow.
“I would like to get to experiment
with my paintings and Neville is a
great teacher,” he says.
