THE almost-30 works of M.Tuvshinbayar shown at Xanadu Art Gallery are all called Space Seen, with a serial number next the words. Since artists are not expected to just “see� things, as you and I do, I guess these are meant to be creative visions.

Now this vision, this seeing with the third eye, is a notoriously difficult word. Lily Briscoe, the painter in Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, had to wait until the very end of the novel to “have had� her vision, which was then left tantalizingly vague, perhaps by the failure of a proper medium of communication. The aspiration of a work of art to reflect the essence of the artist’s vision of the world or the space around him � or ekphrasis � is the basic reason behind creativity. Horace had famously related writing and the visual arts in his phrase, “ut pictura poesis�, which my rusty Latin translates to mean “as painting so is poetry�.

Tuvshinbayar does not quite make it easy for the viewer to grasp what he sees or even if he sees things with the same eyes. What is his dominant feeling? Agony or ecstasy? The creative license allows artists to be torn by such emotional polarities, soaring to peaks and sinking to the pits? In the present exhibition, the artist shows no dread, or even reluctance, to keep us wondering. The thematic meandering has meant that not many of the works touch the deepest chords, but one does see fine craftsmanship.
Tuvshinbayar is generous with his choice of mediums also. Among the works in paper, ink and acrylic, two were striking, with distorted eyes (No. 11), and angry teeth (No. 14), staring with unfriendliness from apparent doodles. There is no diagrammatic arrangement in the way he puts down lambent recollections from his subconscious.

Then we go to paper and ink and his treatment of space changes. The edgy self-absorption expressed through emphatic bands now gives way to nuances of black on white, especially in Nos. 8 and 9. At times, the space is expansive, teasing the eye with inflections of texture and tone.
In comparison the geometric ones look stilted. The elementary rectangles and triangles, as in Nos. 3 and 4, does not extend Tuvshinbayar’s language. There is one Swastika (No. 2) but the surface of the arms is so littered with triangles, circles, squiggles and lines – all standing for haphazard human interference � that the sacred/sacrilegious emblem has become bereft of meaning. No. 2 is also thought-provoking.
The series of water colors on paper, particularly Nos. 15 to 18, show the artist introspecting. He is in psychic turmoil. There are whorls of passion/confusion. A tentativeness stalks the series, lending the works a kind of wry vulnerability.

The mood shifts in No. 21, where acrylic is used on canvas. It is an extremely pleasant arrangement of large dots in colors, but when you stand in front of it and concentrate, you begin to feel you are facing a swarm of bees, intensely ready to scatter away from their geometrical permanence. On occasion, you may feel that the artist has been a little too fussy with the neatness of arrangements, even perhaps a wee bit indulgent towards the smart and pretty.

This impression persists with the medium-sized oils on canvas � Nos. 20, 23, and 24. They appear a little too planned, too bright to be genuine. No. 22, printed alongside, brings one back to reality with a bang. There are enigmatic and playful ellipses: scraps of shapes and motifs that seem to stick out, as though only partly exposed, hinting at more that is hidden, buried. From afar the space seen may look neatly patterned with playthings, but you come close and these innocuous-seeming, abrupt little shapes seem to be insects, unicellular destroyers, maybe objects used by humans. The gentle seduction of their quiet, capricious simplicity unobtrusively gives way to fearful depths. They are like random excerpts rather than a montage rooted in the dynamics of logic. Narrative coherence is subverted, and in that playful mystification lies Tuvshinbayar’s success.