K Padmakar, a HR professional from TISS, Mumbai, has recently superannuated as Director HR from the Public Sector Giant, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, after a total service of 37+ years in various capacities across the levels. For a year he also took additional charge as Chairman & Managing Director of the Company. Padmakar’s Solo Abstract Art is being exhibited at Gallery #3, Jehangir Art Gallery, Kala Ghoda Mumbai, from 26th April to 2nd May, 2022, 11 AM to 7 PM.
K Padmakar
He is very passionate about art which he practiced over the years on his own and over a period of five decades evolved himself into a full-fledged artist. While he works predominantly in acrylic medium, he is equally adept at working with oils, pastels, water colours and mixed media, on canvas and paper. He has been also creating digital art over the last few years. Padmakar is very fond of both abstract and figurative art expressions.
The inspiration behind “Life & its Scaffoldings”
A building is built on sound foundations. As it grows more, we put scaffolds to add or delete what we wish to. This framework of scaffolding is a requirement for form, symmetry, balance, aesthetics, and the much needed artistry and meaning making. Are our lives any different?
Externally, it appears to be the same, but every minute everything of us and our insides are constantly changing, we are never the same, Foundations are laid through genes from both sides, most of it being an enigma to us in the absence of recorded history of our ancestors. Norms, mores, ethnic practices, and cultural aspects defined by time and tradition, as well as gender norms and behaviour – these are what define us. Also defining us are the Karmic patterns of past lives, intended to be decoded in our current life to learn lessons of ascending order, so as to realise the Omnipotent. With so many experiences or phenomena shaping us all the time, as to who we are, the process constantly redefines the “I” within, exposing the empty spaces of the Soul to be filled with light, love, and purpose.
We come with blank minds and go filled with deep experiences and insights, only to repeat ourselves all over without a clue of the past influences of life. These vacuous spaces guide us into making meanings through bridges of relatedness and relationships, seeking love in the materialistic and the mystic worlds, while toiling through the fog of illusions and ‘maya’ – finding something but yet with the true essence going out of hands like flowing sands.
These paintings represent the continuous growth and degradation of Self, with a deep unchanging inner core with the shapes of life’s experiences formed on those unseen scaffolds, serving to strengthen the Soul inside. These give myriad meanings to grow at Soul level yet stripping away and decaying those parts that are no longer relevant – which hide themselves deep inside the consciousness layers only to regain shape at the slightest provocation. They do so by changing shapes and colours so much like the nature around us, through continual decay and growth. Retaining us in our wholesomeness as if nothing has changed but in fact changing the colours of the lenses through which we perceive life and its meanings very differently.
Through all this we realise the futility of ‘I’ versus the Soul, yet vainly try to strike our own roots of fleeting permanency with hopes of leaving some indelible footprints – literally clutching at the straws of life. Scaffolds of Life, not one but many in their broken parts delicately held together through unseen gossamer webs.
