Goa as Subodh Kerkar’s muse

As a child, Subodh Kerkar would almost every day walk on the beach with his father. It is here that the two developed a close bond. An artist himself, his father became his first teacher, and the ocean, his muse and his canvas.

His three-decade journey into art is the subject of a new book — ‘Goa, Subodh Kerkar’s Canvas’ by Kunal Ray (Aleph). Richly illustrated, the book is a short journey into the exhilarating art of Kerkar, who has come a long way from realistic drawings. “Initially, I would make seascapes.



I then took to painting boats. Slowly, I started working with the fishermen and would paint their portraits. This was followed by performance installation, then buying boats and converting them into sculptures; installations with shells; digging holes in the sand and lighting them up.

The beach almost became theatre for me, a stage where I perform,” says the artist, who has also penned poetry on the ocean.Goa: Subodh Kerkar’s Canvas by Kunal Ray. AlephIn this theatrical journey, Goa has been the leitmotif.

In the book, Ray notes that Kerkar’s practice of three decades is an example of how an artist is shaped by his surroundings. The author narrates the trajectory of Kerkar’s practice. His very first paintings were architectural in nature and windows of colourful Goan homes made it to his canvas.

A doctor, Kerkar’s patients mostly included fishermen from the area. He got to know them up close; and patients became subjects. Over time, boats, sea shells, anchors, fish, sand — all things ocean — made their way into his works.

Whether he was turning old boats into sculptures or engaging with fishermen to create performance installations, ocean was right at the centre.‘Mandvi Mandala’, Wood from old Dhows, 2019Kerkar calls the ocean his master. “The ocean didn’t just carve patterns in the sand and rocks, but cultures as well.

People have always come to the ocean — right from the Harappan civilisation. Ships from Arabia would come to Lothal. I explore all this in my art and celebrate the ocean as a medium of intercontinental cultural diffusions,” he says.

Kerkar’s works have featured history of the land, sometimes overtly, as in ‘The King’s Chair’, that was a reminder of the Inquisition, and sometimes subtly, as in ‘Cotton Field’. The latter features cotton pods covered with crochet, an art that was introduced to India by the Portuguese. To mark 2025, the artist created a bed of marigolds, a reminder of the cross-cultural influences as well, because, surprising as it may sound, this flower came to India via the Portuguese.

As Ray writes: “For Kerkar, history is a living force and not a fossilised object of art...

The history of Goa and its various practices endure through the people, their activities, and their surroundings. This belief is central to Kerkar’s work as an artist.”Skill has always been a strong point of the artist.

As an 18-year-old, his cartoons were being featured in a Goan daily; and while working as a doctor, there was a steady stream of buyers of his works. However, “skill alone didn’t make an artist..

. He felt increasingly caged by a sense of repetition that was setting in,” writes Ray. This strong sense of self-realisation was to open new doors for Kerkar.

In 1990, he travelled to Europe, where he saw installation art for the first time. He had for long wondered how to make art on Goa beyond its pretty landscapes, and had now found a way. Return to India became imminent.

‘The Fishermen and the Ocean’, Performance installation 2, 2008.The works that came about upon his return are detailed in the book: ‘150 Natals’, created from parts of the walls of a 150-year-old abandoned house; ‘Second Evolution’, featuring an army of 500 terracotta heads planted on the beach, addressing human evolution and the myth of an empire at the bottom of the ocean; ‘Goa’s Ark’, where a discarded boat renders an episode from Goa’s past with a playful twist. Kerkar once hired migrant labourers and made them sit in such a way as to form an elliptical line or a circle, creating the shape of a boat or fishbone.

Many of these installations began with still photography and then veered towards video art. Understandably, the installations are temporary; what remains is a good photograph or a video. “Temporary nature of the work is very interesting.

And that’s why I compare my works to this poem by Tagore, which says that the waves write their poetry on sand and not satisfied, wipe them off over and over again. Imagine the waves wiping off the poetry that the waves write. My works are my poetry on the beach,” he says.

There are times when post an installation, Kerkar sees people walking on the beach and asks himself what else he can do...

And just like that, endless possibilities emerge. Like, just two days ago, he created a moon with sunflowers. “In my opinion, that is one of my best works.

The possibilities are surprising, inexhaustible.”Kerkar’s practice democratises art by taking it to people. This was also the idea behind starting the Museum of Goa (MOG) 10 years ago.

“We felt art needed to reach more and more people. Today, we have 100 to 300 visitors every day,” he says. Run by his daughter, Sharada, MOG is a vibrant space with thousands of students from schools visiting it every year.

There are more museums on the cards; one for beer with a contemporary art twist is opening in a few months.Until then and beyond, Goa intrigues..