The Story of An Extraordinary Artist: Paul Fernandes Captures the Nation’s Urban Past

Paul Fernandes is the kind of person who sees riches everywhere: in dry, crackling leaves, in shrunken seeds, or in any other kind of wilted tree dropping that most of us would sweep aside. On one of the walls in his aPaulogy Gallery on Pottery Road (https://apaulogy.com/), these found treasures have been converted into art; turning, with a few ingenious strokes, nuts and seeds into animated spiders or beetles or mice.

While those are some of his recent works, he has also foraged for wealth elsewhere: digging into his own memories and impressions of rapidly morphing cities, capturing street corners and crumbling buildings in rich watercolor caricatures that are like a visual record and commemoration of such spaces. Not just of the things that abound in those places – the vintage cars, the one-time bazaars, the café awnings – but also of the people.

A Charmed Childhood

Born in a bungalow on Pottery Road – in the same space, where his gallery is currently located – he inhabited an era that was marked by its sparseness. Characterized even as a child by a gleeful curiosity in the world – a quality that he continues to radiate sixty-three years later – he cherished his school days. Cycling to St. Joseph’s, a school run by Jesuit priests, with a gang of motley friends, he recalls how “easy” everything seemed then.

Since his family lived opposite the Bangalore East Railway station, he watched the trains rumble in and out of view. Or the horses clomp about in a stable, that was part of their home, when his father bought the property. All of this and more emerged inside his middle-school notebooks, as cartoons; the kind of drawings that made everything seem enchanted and impish. His friends often crowded around his notebooks, bewitched by the manner in which Paul’s lines and squiggles seemed to evoke and remake the city. He loved moving things – trains, horses, cars, aeroplanes. But not just things. The ongoing tango between people, places and things.

After his 10^th Standard, his father hoped Paul would pursue medicine like he had. After all, Doctor Fernandes was rather iconic in the city: well-known for his miracle cures, gentle touch and geniality. Fortunately, for Paul, his Hindi marks did not make the cut for his entry into medicine. He opted, instead, to start working as a trainee artist for an ad agency founded by the late Peter Colaco (a Professor of Advertising at IIM-B and the author of a Bangalore-based book). Two years into his job, Fernandes was persuaded to study further. Unlike most others at that age, he knew exactly what he wanted to study: commercial art. He headed to the Faculty of Fine Arts at MS University at Baroda.

Working and Studying at Baroda

Set up by the far-sighted Maharajah Sayajirao, MS University was home to one of the finest Fine Art programs in the country. Moreover, located in one of the best parts of Baroda, its campus stretched over hundreds of tree-filled acres. It was an idyllic setting for Fernandes, who was by then, already sporting the long hair that was archetypal of artists. Besides the sedative greens, the river Vishwamitri burbled through the college. In those lush surroundings, Paul made the best use of his time, consciously seeking interactions with a wide set of people –painters, sculptors, photographers and potters. “A sculptor would come and look at your work and give you a very different kind of perspective.”

While this deepened his own approach to art, he also appreciated the very liberal and progressive culture inside the program. Apart from imposing a minimalist discipline and structure – wherein classes were held till about 12:30 p.m. – students were encouraged to pursue their own interests and develop distinctive styles.

Since Fernandes was already acclimatized with the working world, he wasn’t one to waste the hours available to him after classes ended. So he signed up to work at Redact, an advertising agency in Baroda, adding a sum of Rupees 300 per month to a similar stipend received from his parents. Unlike most others who remained dependent on tight family budgets, Paul was able to afford ‘luxuries’ – like a motorbike, for instance. Besides such perks, the workplace imbued Fernandes with skills that a mere college setting might not have offered.

In those pre-computer days, every task involved an ardor that might be hard to relate with today. Photographs or scraperboard art had to be procured from Mumbai; drawings were always done by hand, often with few tools. Since most newspapers were not equipped to handle colour, the black and white medium demanded stronger creatives to persuade audiences.

In the meanwhile, Fernandes was also walking the streets of Baroda, exploring the urban scape. At many nooks and corners, he would stop and just stare. He learned to formally observe people – their mannerisms and gestures, their movements and postures. He also had artist role models that he was keen to emulate. He spent many hours inside the richly endowed MS University Library, poring over the works of Mario Miranda, R.K. Laxman and Henri Matisse.

Five Memorable Years at Mumbai

At the end of his Bachelor’s stint, he was snapped up by Ravi Gupta, the founder of Trikaya, which held the reputation of being one of the most creative agencies of its time. Besides being eager to join the larger firm, Fernandes was also galvanized about living in Mumbai. After all, for an artist who was always aroused by the offbeat confluence of places and people, the maximum city threw up a vivid profusion of pictures. Where else, but in Bombay, as it was called then, could one bump into an array of life forms – dons, prostitutes, paupers and princes – melding into the peculiar mélange that occupied its streets?

Of course, he also had to work at three different jobs just to pay rent and make ends meet. His salary at Trikaya was 700 rupees per month, where he worked from 9.a.m to 6 p.m. Hustling like many gritty Mumbaikars, he worked at another agency from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and at yet another, from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. On top of this 24×7 work cycle from Monday to Saturday, he caught the Saturday night train to Baroda each week, and toiled at his erstwhile employer – Redact – on Sundays. But being consumed by his jobs did not bother him in the least, he recalls. Since he completely relished his tasks, where nothing was ever repeated, he felt like he was in a state of perpetual wonder, always looking, always learning.

Juggling his various stints, he imbibed the methods of larger enterprises, as well as of smaller ones. At Trikaya, which was a relatively big firm, with separate silos for copywriting, photography and client servicing, he learned to collaborate with people of various types. In Redact, he often did everything himself – ranging from writing copy and even occasionally taking photographs.

Then there was that perpetual hunger to explore Mumbai, by cycle or on foot. Fernandes knew that he was drawn to certain places in this manner. And when tantalized by initial impressions, something inside him yearned to explore it in greater detail. To prize apart the innards of its magic, to gather exactly those details that would later imbue his artworks with its idiosyncratic essence.

He would not have traded those five years in Mumbai for anything else. “They were just spectacular, the people you met, the creative knowledge, the professionalism and the workplaces,” Fernandes says. Inside the nation’s commercial and creative capital, everything felt heightened – displaying to the ever-entranced Paul how cities and people could modify each other.

Back to Bangalore

After five years in Mumbai, he wished to return to Bangalore. He set up a small design studio called IDA – Illustration/Design/Advertising – at M.G. Road, next to Plaza Theatre. He partnered with Rahul Mehrotra, who had worked with him at Redact at Baroda. From 1988 to 1993, the team ran IDA, building a loyal customer base who was drawn to their uncommon sensibilities.

Later, Fernandes realized he needed to give into an inner urge to turn to art full time. By then, he was also exhausted with just doing work for others. He had been gathering so many ideas inside him, and he felt like he needed to allow his creativity to express itself. Like in his school days, things and people, times past and present, a wide swathe of illustrations stirred inside him.

Pivoting Into Art as a Profession

He even recalls a specific moment, when this midlife detour was sparked off. One day, he had crossed M.G. Road in Bangalore, striding across the pedestrian stripes, while gazing at the traffic at dusk, when everything glowed under the flicker of streetlights. Just then, he turned to look at the Plaza Theatre across the road inside the gentle evening light. A story gurgled up into remembrance; of an aunt who had gone to watch Gone With The Wind at the Plaza. Only to emerge from the theatre and realize, to her consternation, that someone had let the air out of her four car tyres. “Gone with the wind,” chuckles Paul, with an inimitable mischief lighting up his eyes. He felt that he had to capture that memory in a painting.

Since then, he has produced an extensive repertoire of works, that have drawn from a range of equally droll or poignant anecdotes about the past, sometimes dipping into his own memories, and at other times, drawing stories from others. His drawings require the same fervor that he was accustomed to at work. He stands at particular spots, observing it from different angles, in varied lighting intensities. “Sometimes,” he says, “you need to go back many, many times.” Such visits are driven by questions that keep popping up. For instance, “What does the moon do to a place?”

The Process Behind the Creations

Each time he visits a place, he makes notes – not necessarily with words, but even with small scribbled images. His lines describe the sky, the mood, the crack on a roof tile, the damp spot on a wall, a creeper edging out of a gap. Sometimes, he takes a few photographs. The note-taking is extensive and almost encyclopedic. For instance, he can’t just stop with knowing that a tree hurls its shadow across the pavement. “I need to know what tree it is, a gulmohar or a rain tree.” Such notetaking might take a year or more before he starts drawing and painting the particular piece.

Besides documenting his observations, he also talks to people about their memories, and perspectives on places. In his paintings, like in works of carefully etched historical fiction, he recreates the precise dress codes and hairstyles. Like the bell bottoms, Juliet sleeves and Beatle hair styles of the ‘70s. Sometimes he digs into old pictures and photographs to guide him.

After the extensive documentation leads to an internal sedimentation of what he wants to do, the final work is often done in a flash. Sometimes in as quickly as a week. For a process that is painfully slow to begin with, it can feel “immediate or fast,” towards the end. But he never starts till he has it all together in his own head.

At his home studio, he has a large table, with several pieces in progress at the same time. If he feels stuck on a particular work, he moves to another. Like many creative geniuses, Paul admits to being prolific and working long hours. He draws every day. On his most productive days, he draws for as long as 15 or 16 hours a day.

While he acknowledges that it’s not easy to make a living as an artist, Fernandes is personally satisfied with the level of recognition and commercial success he has achieved. Besides being sold through his aPaulogy galleries in Bengaluru and Mumbai, his paintings, books and merchandise sell across the nation and the world – to Indophiles and the diaspora – to all who want to regain a piece of the past, of a city they had left behind or of an anecdote they had forgotten.

References

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