Vijaybhai

METASCAPES

Now, almost 40 years later Vijay Bhai is trying to fulfill his dream. Those early experiences naturally help him in visualising and applying thoughts in a new medium. Though computer is just a machine, for Vijay Bhai it is something more than that. For him it is not just moving the mouse and pressing the buttons to dabble and find something accidentally and automatically. His works are of clear-cut vision. A vision well planned and structured, derived out of great inner need, an internal urge. The colour, form, structure, composition - the prerequisites of a painting - find saturation in the works of Vijay Bhai.

In 1992 computer became his friend and a companion. As a humble beginner doodling with MS Word Art, and then using Paintbrush, he started his first works. In those days there was no facility for saving compositions in the Image software. What ever he doodled got deleted. He just enjoyed doing and deleting.

Vijay Bhai is a self-taught artist and a self-taught computer specialist. He learnt graphics and packages connected with art and design, on his own - by trial and error method. His sole purpose was to explore the inner self. Making use of the digital media - he went in depth searching different tools and effects, facing different problems and finding different solutions.

Around 1997-98 he started working with Paintshop Pro 4. In 1999 he found himself comfortable in the package Painter-Classic in which he could feel the brushstrokes and blends of colour. He also found that Coral Draw is useful in reorganising the images he worked with. Now, he is equally good at handling packages such as Illustrator, Freehand-7, Photoshop-5 and Photopaint-9.

In the process of learning and search, Vijay Bhai's works are not so consistent. Since he tried different possibilities of the media his works appear to speak many languages. In the beginning, like any other beginner, he was not sure of his end product. But constantly working and understanding Vijay Bhai develops his work instantly and intuitively, or by applying right tools at the right place. The basic design problems such as line, colour, form, shape, texture, and the rest are solved in the later day works. Image, treatment, application wise the body of works he has done can be categorised into 4 to 5 series, series of experiments with multi-dimensional tools available.

He works with human figures, landscapes and with abstract forms sometimes geometric and sometimes organic, but he is quite authentic when uses the fog and mist effect. It may be because he had a deep appreciation for the watercolours of Gaganedranath Tagore.

His works reveal most personal feelings and subtle personality traits."

Nemiraj Shetty, Art Historian, Artist, Curator
Hyderabad, May 2002