BHASKAR RAO

Bio

‘As an artist, I want my landscapes to reflect the memories and experiences I have collected from the places I have lived, touched, smelled, heard and walked through. After experimenting on different subjects like streets, figures, I found my calling in nature, as my earlier series assimilated widespread, vast landscapes, with land, water bodies and skies. But gradually and eventually, the tree form has become the core element of my works. On a broader scale these works reflect an innate bond between trees and people of my country, in the form of worship and as an emblem of auspiciousness. And, yet these works also imbibe my intimate and immensely cherished companionship with nature which started when I was young and has become stronger with time.’

According to Indian mythology, trees or vrikshas were the offspring of Anala who was married to the great sage Kashyapa. They have a great significant role in our cultural landscape for they not only yield fruits but provide shade as well and cover and protect the earth’s surface and have come to assume over the years even a sacred role. Bhaskar’s leitmotif – “‘The Tree” has remained constant as part of his oeuvre over the years in his career as a painter. 

At a cursory glance at his body of work, though it may appear that he seems to be involved and articulating his ideas through his vision of a landscape, it is primarily the image of the tree which stands out – which he keeps returning to over the years. 

Bhaskar has painted and drawn trees in myriad mediums and yet every time he has returned to it with a new vision. In black and white, sombre greys or bright primary colours, the tree stands out resplendently, a sentinal to remind us of the havoc we seem to cause on the sacred face of the earth in our pursuit of selfish interests.