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About
KRISHNA SETTY CS, is a Bengaluru based artist well known nationally and internationally, born at Theerthahalli, in Shimoga District in Karnataka. A versatile personality his academic studies ranged from fine arts [Davangere School of Art] to post graduation in Kannada Literature[Mysore University] including a short stint at working in Delhi Garhi Graphics Studios. Besides being an artist he also served as an art critic for Kannada Dailies Prabha and Praja Vani.
Though intellectually inclined, in this recent suite of works he delves within the subconscious to dredge out subject matter that unconsciously links to his immediate environment, becoming the protagonist dictating creation of narratives that are essentially encounters with his interiorization of experiences that reflect the dystopia of society, culture, environment and many other related issues. In this large corpus of works he offers an art, which is performative of a world of dreams and fantasy with imagination weaving forms that have a greater degree of surreality that belongs to the realm of non normality. His visual language is not realistic but quasi abstract and forms that are visually earthy and heavy. The works are mainly rendered in ink and coloured pastels particularly to ‘create an eerie feeling’ and in small format on paper. It appropriately manifests a world of dreams and fantasy which translates as an inner space that in the imaginative realm assumes monstrous and bizarre forms.
His compositions though appearing naïve and simple with iconic motif as plant, tree, heads, boat or a bird however are interlaced with many different elements that makes it ichnographically dense. He makes the thick complexity of his art resides in the extensive use of symbols that careen freely within his well structured compositions to intrigue the viewer. The symbols nevertheless vary in its interpretation for the artist and are not fixed to connote a consistent particular meaning, thus making the reading of his art ambiguous and in a state of perpetual enigma. According to the artist, “Initially I used many images as metaphor and symbols as snake for unfulfilled sexual desire, hand for political party, chair for power, dead fish for common man etc. But over the years they surpassed their limitations and became generic to powerfully express multiple meanings. That’s why most of my works are untitled”. His forms acquire strength through mysterious qualities offered by his fecund imagination, which is premised on his perception of insightfully observing life; and interpreting through the creative lens of experiences that offer expressions, which are brazenly unnerving as well as laced with humour and wit. For instance in nature the trees have assumed an anthropomorphic form with legs evoking walking trees or a pot of plant that incidentally has fish or snakes in place of leaves. A studied scrutiny reveals his articulation with varied creatures as the fish, reptiles, birds, ants and also designed the hybrid forms, which Setty offers to the viewer as a canvas of palimpsest symbols layered with meanings; the imagery delivered from his subconscious realm.
Fish as a ubiquitous symbol has been extensively engaged by artists across centuries and particularly observed in works of iconic artists Matisse, Picasso, Soutine, Paul Klee or R.B. Bhaskaran. Connected to the element of water the fish carries within its heart the symbolic meaning of emotions, creativity transformation, serenity, intelligence, strength and endurance, qualities that are reflective of Setty’s maturing, developing and evolving persona that is extended to harness in a subconscious manner the ambiguity of this particular element in his art. The freedom of expression that Setty exercise through his fantasy, dreams, imagination and distorted forms is inscribed in his engagement with the bird, and like them Setty can be realistically grounded or soar high with his thoughts into another realm. The intuitive and instinctual feelings become relevant by articulating with the imagery of reptiles particularly the snake, which for the artist represents unfulfilled sexual desire extended further it could also include unfulfilled artistic needs. His distinct use of these banal creatures was valorized through his fresh perception which in its manipulation created a disturbing effect for the viewer. Juxtaposing this was his imagined visual vocabulary of hybrid forms that provide a link between the conscious and the unconscious mind. There are masks relating to hypocrisy and falsehood existing in society and hybrid forms that reveal the monstrosity concealed within human beings relating to his indulgences in the fulfillment of his desires for greed and materialism. In this respect Setty through his volatile metaphors coveys a dystopian world that has been expressed powerfully. These many issues finds resonance with his use of metaphors as a bird resting on a spiky wire since the environment has become devoid of greenery, the head comprising of many raised hands reach out beyond the contours signifying the atrocities and violence that have become commonplace in society, the alienation caused by technology is evocatively represented through heads confined within the squares and triangles. With synoptic vocabulary he conveys the magnitudes of problems facing individuals in their life. In this context one intrinsically powerful composition rendered on canvas has the representation of the images that juxtaposes three forms namely a reptile with its cut head, a woman’s body with bird wings and a series of caricatured masks that hang in the background. The work makes for a strong emotional appeal with violence symbolic in the mutilated reptile, torture evident in the hybrid form of a woman with wings signifying repression and captivity and a skeleton of the fish inside a metaphor of her body becoming a site of many atrocities of violence and sexual abuse. The masks of hypocrisy suggest falsehood and pretense that undergirds familial life. The inherent geometry of sharp shapes within the forms is poignant, gesturing towards disharmony and dissonance while the aspiration for harmony and accord remains a dream.
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