Inscribed Landscapes by Alok Bal

“ One doesn't always sing out of happiness “
-Pierre Bonnard

“In the dark times will there also be singing?
Yes, There will be also singing about dark times.”
-Bertolt Brecht.


Alok Bal's works combine an activist's disposition with an underlying, unmistakable lyricism. Visible responses to contemporary political issues, the key works in this show mark Alok's solidarity with the people and struggles that he identifies with. Although agonized by the social and ecological harmony eroding in our country, the poetry, rhythm and lyricism visible in these works are a vital part of Alok's visual language and syntax. His works become eulogies written as images.

Alok Bal's images refer to ecological disasters, displacements of tribals, and portray victims of fake encounters during Maoist insurgencies. The sense of anger and disillusionment is palpable. But there is also celebration. Of strength and resilience. The people protesting and portrayed are not individuals. They are more members of a community, sharing bonds, beliefs and commitments, responding not so much to leaders but to inner calls and urgings. It is not accidental that most of these actions in the works take place within panoramic landscapes, pulsating with primeval memory, denoting their powers of healing.

Why landscape? It is because the forest, for Alok, is an emotionally dependable place, like a home. A forest envelops its inhabitants with warmth and kindness. You can hear the breath and whispers of the plants in the rustling of leaves. Its biodiversity is handed down from generation to generation. The trees, hills and rivers, the myths and songs they have engendered have given us an intuitive knowledge of nature. I can recognize in his works the remarkable affinity he achieves between the brush marks and the plants and vegetation he portrays There is something about these signs, images and metaphors which connect with the inner terrains of the mind. But, danger lurks therein. The forest is also the place. where innocent people are shot dead. It is interesting that when Alok paints even the protests of Shaheen Baug in Delhi, he prefers to situate it in forest-like settings. He obfuscates the bodies of dead family as if in a newspaper photograph.

Alok's works are humanitarian to the core. They speak not just of injustice but also of sustainability. The water bodies indicate purity but also reflect the sky's infinity. An act of immersion in its infiniteness is for him an act of ritualistic cleansing. Alok knows only too well that there is a marked difference between street agitations -- that he has participated in -- and the solitariness of a painter's studio. And yet, in his works, the public, the political, the personal and sensual worlds nourish and beget one another. The resulting enmeshing provide his images with a breadth and communicative reach that is unusual and admirable.

It is interesting to note that many of these works contrast wildly with the kind of urban landscapes he had previously painted. Arriving in the city of Baroda as an art student many years ago from a rural hamlet in Orissa was only an initial shock. The raw houses, industrial suburbs with a namesake green cover of his previous works are now replaced by jungles pregnant with mystery. This return seems to be an inevitable ecological necessity. The germination of these works can be traced back to a sequence of post-Covid drawings he did, in which he probed with deep existential strains, the relationships between man and nature, individuals and communities.
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Alok's explorations with paint are a visual treat, and are nowhere to be seen in the world of Indian art today. His paintings draw on the great tradition of figurative art from both East and the West. For him, painting is an ongoing activity because of the very uncertainty inherent within it. They evolve through constant additions and erasures. As I see it, painting has remained central to everything Alok has done since his college days. He has continued to align with it even when plenty of other linguistic choices were available to him. Maybe this choice is a reason why he has not yet been accorded the kind of attention he rightly deserves. Not that it has ever mattered to him.

The groups of people whom Alok portrays in these new works have not lost their power of singing. They sing in unison, like members of a chorus. They sing about trauma and loss. They sing so they cannot be silenced. Yes, these are songs of our dark times. But they are also songs about bonding and resilience. They are songs of hope. Yes, they are songs that are seeking, deserving and staking their claim to a better place in a better world.

- Vasudevan Akkitham