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Exploring Eva's wonderland
 The
comments in the guest book for Eva Mikulski's exhibition in Pitanga
early this year have a common thread. "Insightful and joyful
in expression. You made me happy", "Creative and fun
- I couldn't help but smile", "The children love it!"
"Super!! This is real creativity. Even if you don't call
yourself one, you are an Artist with a capital A", "Beautiful
and funny", "First living works of art I have seen in
quite a while."
Anyone who crossed Pitanga's threshold during
those three weeks in January came out either with twinkling eyes,
a lopsided grin, a skip in their step, or just plain flying. As
for the exhibition itself, it featured, among other things, little
white people scrambling up a spiral of blue clouds, the orange
'scrunchie-man' exploring the limits of a square, champagne glasses
tipping with lusciously ripe earths made of painted ping-pong
balls… A wonderland it was.
Eva Mikulski is bespectacled with a boyish
crop of salt n' pepper hair. Her scholarly and severe appearance
proves deceptive. As she begins to talk, her soft voice exudes
an intense warmth and sincerity.
"I was never trained formally in art
except for a few courses in still-life at the Pyramids",
says Eva. Her engagement with art began only seven years ago and
came about dramatically in her adult life. "A sudden internal
change made me take the big plunge," she recollects. "I
left everything at this point. I left my work which was in administration,
my partner, my community, my house - everything. And on top of
it all, I had a health crisis. I went to a very good homeopathic
specialist and she treated me. Suddenly administration work was
not possible anymore, and I went into education.
"The thing I like very much in Auroville
is when you feel a call towards something, you don't need to go
to school to get a certificate. It is sufficient that you feel
the call and you invest yourself in that."
Eva immersed herself in education but quit
after a few years. "When I was in there, I loved it. Children
are wonderful. But we, the adults, have too many mental imaginations.
How the children should act, how they should function, what is
good, what is bad, and so on! My lesson was that it was too early
to do experiments in education."
Her departure from education naturally led
her even more into art. "After leaving the school, I felt
I became more childlike. In the school, I learnt a lot from the
children about creativity and the absence of mental impossibilities
or limitations.
"I read a lot of books on Art, especially
Picasso. Somewhere he says that it took him sixty years to paint
like a child! And when I saw this, I said to myself, 'Why don't
you go and be like a child. Become a child!' Okay, but to say
this and to become one are two different things. Perhaps my experience
with children, the books I read and what was going on inside of
me, all of it had to come out! "
In the past, Eva had followed a few courses
at the Pyramids, but soon she began to explore art on her own
as well as copying, and when she completed a work, she would rip
it apart and reassemble it into a collage. "Collage lets
me stretch my imagination and helps me see differently."
 Eva
also began to favour mixed media, and material became very important
to her. Some of the items she uses in her works are astonishing.
Things a layperson would walk past without a cursory glance get
a second lease of life with Eva. She uses a lot of found objects
in her work: leftovers from units, workshop scrap, recycled material,
plywood, canvas, plaster of paris - anything that catches her
eye. Eva admits that part of her studio is a veritable junkyard.
Even her own works that come back from her exhibition, which no
one wants, she recycles and transforms into something new.
Speaking of her first work, "It was made
of plaster of paris, cloth, and half a tennis ball. I sold it
in Chennai at my first exhibition. Actually there is an embarrassing
story that goes with it. This painting was done with fresh plaster
of paris directly applied over the canvas. The lady who bought
it for an architectural office called me two months later with
the news that the painting was self-destructing. The plaster was
cracking and falling off!" With such learning experiences
behind her, Eva had to become more and more acquainted with material
properties and their optimal use. "Of course now when I use
plaster of paris, I always make sure of using chicken wire as
back-up," laughs Eva.
Eva has held three exhibitions. The first
was 'Perception' and it happened because her studio was overflowing.
Using this same approach, she has had two more shows titled 'Along
the Way" and 'Explorations'.
Asked if the nature of her works has changed
over time, Eva replies in the affirmative. "It is like everything
you do, art is just a tool to evolve." She admits that her
life experiences immediately show up in the works. For example,
after travelling to Australia, she found that the size of her
paintings had changed. "Australia is a very vast country.
When I came back, the size of my works went from small to huge.
That was quite funny."
What is special about Eva is her idealism
and aspiration that is true to the Auroville dream. "At my
first exhibition in Chennai I sold two pictures. But here, in
Auroville, I don't sell.We have not come here for this, for money
exchange.
"Moreover, this is a gift that has been
given to me. It is not that 'I' do, the big I. It is something
that comes and I put it down. Where is the 'property'? How can
I sell it?" Eva reveals that at her latest exhibition, a
lot of her works had willing takers.
But would people not take advantage of her
goodwill? "If so it is their problem," laughs Eva. "If
after some time, one doesn't want to see a painting or a sculpture
any more, one may want to give it back and take something else.
But if you have spent money on artwork, there is always the tendency
to cling to it and to see it as an investment."
 On
the topic of her latest exhibition, the works exhibited showed
baffling contrasts. It was hard to conceive that such diversity
of expression came from the same artist. "Yes, but there
are different natures to the artist," reflects Eva. "That
is why I chose to call it 'Explorations'. I did not want to limit
myself saying, 'Eva, this is not your style or this is only temporary'.
All this comes from inside and so it has to be from some real
part of myself.
"I spoke with another Auroville
artist and it gave me the confirmation that the tool for everybody
is different, the direction is different. I have a mental rigidity
and it is very important to let go and surrender. I see art as
a tool to confront myself, discover and manifest what I am and
surrender. To protect and imprison oneself is what prevents one
from being happy and creative. Anything, anything at all can be
the tool," she passionately declares, "But let us just
DO! To give up and settle down - this is life's biggest tragedy."
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