Veer Munshi - Imagistic Painter

Shantiveer Kaul 

Veer Munshi makes you think! That would be enough raison for a formal expression. He makes you feel as well. This feeling is occasioned by an introspection that his work insistently demands. His image-constructs are made up of diverse elements which, together, attain a paradigmatic quality. Yet, there is nothing 'designed' about his work. There is little artifice here. Even his unconventional spectrum of colours, where violets and greens co-exist in gay abandon, has an elemental core.

Veer Munshi's work is primarily imagistic- in the poetic sense. You have a ladder leading nowhere, cherub-like figures trying to arrest time, tired fingers trying to unveil the chapters of light, and, above all, People who are images. People with upturned faces, downcast eyes, contemplative, hoping in a void. People- images strongly reminiscent of survivors of a holocaust. That these people-images, bearing the imprint of some ravaging time, retain and convey dignity is the signal success of Veer Munshi's work.

Veer Munshi, born in Kashmir and trained in Baroda, has been working on the Exodus and its aftermath even since he had to leave his native Kashmir in 1990 for the inhospitably hot plains of the country. His first solo painting show was held at the Art Heritage in New Delhi in 1993. His second solo, held at the AIFACS, Rafi Marg, New Delhi for a week from May 22, 1995, is currently on at the Jehangir Art Gallery, Bombay.

Veer Munshi's quest can be taken to be the same as that of the illustrious Lalleshwari, Lalded, the fourteenth-century Shaivist philosopher and mystic-poets of Kashmir when she said:

Aami panna sadras naavi chhas lamaan Kati Bozi Daya myon maeti diyi taar, Aamen takyen poni zan shaman Zuv Chhum bramaan gara gachha haa.

(I am towing my boat across the worldly ocean with a towing-line of loosely spun untwisted fine cord. Would my prayers be answered by my Supreme Deity that he ferry me across. My state of mind is like that of an unbaked earthen platter which absorbs water and I feel tempted to go home).

Veer Munshi's paintings have figured in the pages of 'Koshur Samachar' for quite some time now. His historic painting of the Sharika, the presiding Deity of Kashmir, in ethnic dress, released at the first WKP Conference, New Delhi, in December 1995, became an instant rage. It is now adorning many KP homes in India and abroad. This painting was also carried by 'Koshur Samachar' on the front cover of its July 1994

(Studio Garhi Studios, East of Kailash, New Delhi -110001)

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Courtesy: June 1995, Kosher Samachar