The Nandi

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.
Only talented artist MadanLal’s paintings aka visual poems can be felt as strongly as the poetic lines that often accompany them. Expressive, evocative and mysterious, the entire expanse of his paintings can never be fully decoded or deconstructed. Just as poetry has many layers, so does his imagery created painstakingly layer by layer at the base of which lies his proficiency in drawing.
To begin with, he flirted with some abstract forms and suddenly in 2005 gravitated towards figurative. Exhibitions employing the figure of Buddha, head bowed in submission won much acclaim and buyer’s too.Anhadnaad resounded in the series on music. Yet another blue series followed. Monochromatic colours prevailed, as his canvasses were swathe in vibrant blues, pinks, yellows and greens. Rang uddehanbinakhamab de, rang boldehanbinashabdan de.(Colours fly without wings and speak without words). Yet amidst splash of colours, forms have held its charm in his lexicon. Till today his fascination for figures remains intact. Only the figures are drawn more from the cesspools of imagination than the real world.
From complexity of human relationships to nature’s bounteous beauty, if aesthetics are never forsaken nor is the joie de vivre that defines both his persona and his art. If his paintings employing the medium of acrylics are bewitching and there is no escaping its visible charm, equally profound, even stabilising is the underlying thought. At peace with himself, his art and the world he inhabits, tranquillity is his beacon that takes him to a state of equanimity, beauty and poise.
Madan, who paints in the wee hours of morning, as if he is offering a supplication to nature and art, does not create art in a jiffy or at one go. Step by step, he draws and paints, adds, subtracts and fuses. If at one point the focal point of his creativity is the image of Buddha, at another it could be man woman engaged in a dialogue. Eroticism, spirituality the continuum of his art has many points, even ends, yet not disparate. Love for human beings, he believes leads us to devotion for the higher power and man-woman relationship is the defining thread of social matrix.
Among the bounties of the almighty, as a village boy he admired the vast expanse of mustard fields, the endless horizon of sky, rivers gushing by and clouds enveloping the sky. When a modern city like Chandigarh stood before his eyes in his college days, he was clearly awestruck by man-made wonders, the geometric lay out of the city and its urbane flavour. Urban Phulkari, his National Award winning composition, epitomises assimilation of his rural and urban experiences. A host of symbols of urban living such as calculation, analogous of materialism, move into his canvasses.