Mahavir Verma is one of the very few artists around us, who could courageously breakaway from all which he learned from the art institutions to develop his independent style. However, a closer look at his paintings does reveal his sound academic foundations and his very disciplined handling of medium.
In his paintings, while he celebrates the lives of subalterns of the social hierarchy, he primarily focuses on the activities of the children. This conscious selection of subjects shadows the darker areas and brings forth the essence of juvenile fantasies. Over a decade, Mahavir Verma has created a human form that bears his very own signature.
In his recent series of paintings, we find all those weightless forms in their flying postures thus adding a newer dimension to his creations and we find ourselves in front of a stage, where a scene from an unknown fairy tale is being enacted.
The paintings of Mahavir Verma do not claim to have any philosophical undertones, and they can be looked at the way we see the pleasant side of the world around us.
In a short period, Mahavir Verma has developed his form and worked hard to blend various colours and created a pallet that best suits his paintings. His paintings have always been distinguished by their flat surfaces which serve as a wide backdrop to the 'performers' in his paintings. In the recent paintings, however, he has very subtly created a horizon in this flat background, and we often find a village in a haze. This is indeed a significant landscape like addition in the overall scheme of the paintings of Mahavir Verma as this undoubtedly enhances the depth of the paintings.
Mahavir Verma comes from a tiny township of Madhya Pradesh which is deprived of any facility that can help anyone practice art. But such deprivations have failed to dampen the spirit of Mahavir Verma, and he is religiously painting with astonishing fecundity. Despite being placed in a small town far away from the so called art centres, Mahavir continues to be an ardent student of art. He is absolutely clear about his art as he says: "my paintings are essentially based on my encounters with realities and dreams, but they do not tell any story. Whenever I would decide to share them with the people around me, I will better write a piece of prose to do so. I am an ardent disciple of Rabindranath Tagore, and I fully believe in his ideas on paintings."
Ashok Bhowmick
Artist , Art critic, Writer and Activist
