The artist figured as pilgrim, monk or jongleur…

Badri Narayan paintings, simple in subject matter, reveal their intricacies to the viewer. Intimate and appealing, they are often infused with an element of fantasy, brought to the fore by simple outlines represented in two-dimensional stylized representations.

Defining the distinguishing aspects of his persona and paintings, renowned art critic Ranjit Hoskote elaborates in an essay: “He has re-interpreted the wisdom traditions of the ancient and mediaeval world; an autodidact, he shares his discoveries with others, rather than dictating his teachings. Accordingly, for him, painting is neither a didactic medium for the propagation of a gospel; nor yet is it an expressionist project marked by emotive exaggeration. Rather, he treats the painted surface as a visionary space where insight can be gained, and perhaps even revelation.”

Badri Narayan has for long been preoccupied by two distinct allegories: one of the different stages of life, which tend to mark the seamless transition of the self from one theatre of action & subsequent reflection to another; and second, that of the self apparently ambushed by revelation, the self-portrait attained in various guises.

In the recent paintings, he has rendered the first of these two allegories through such scenarios as that of the elephant that enters a curious cave-door opening in the flank of a hill, while an abandoned boat is floating on the riverbed, with a cast-off garment as its only anchor, or the royal ascetic hearing the celestial musician’s annunciation.

The artist is figured as pilgrim, monk or jongleur; as a wizening questor who is meditating on his paint-brush, or as a scholar professing on the various enigmas of reality, in the second allegory. An aura of freedom and lightness illuminates his recent works even where the artist strikes an introspective undertone. It seems, he reminds himself and the viewer, of the fact that the hard-drawn insight is not reachable merely by the path of suffering alone; there’s also that path of joy to be discovered.