Date:07/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/07/stories/2008100750990200.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

A history and a form

Deepika Arwind

Two artists at Adishilp are nephews of Jangarh Singh Shyam

— Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

A DYING TRADITION: Gond tribal artists at craft expo in Bangalore.

Bangalore: Their work is a pictorial form of storytelling that is bit like flash fiction, the form an intricate, laboured upon nib-and-paint work that has been passed on for generations.

Gond painters Mohan Singh Shyam and Uday Singh Pusham are the nephews of Jangarh Singh Shyam, the famous Gond artist who took his own life under controversial circumstances at the Mithila Museum in Niigata, Japan, when he was denied permission to return to India. His work as a Gond painter has been of iconic importance, displayed at galleries and art shows across the world, apart from having painted the interiors of the Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha.

The two artists at Adishilp, the tribal crafts expo on Webbs Grounds, continue to paint even at their stall. While Mr. Shyam has his paintbrush dipped in bright green as he completes a painting of Ganesha, Mr. Pusham has begun a fine-nib ketch on thick paper of A4 size.

“This is my first time in Bangalore,” says Mr. Shyam explaining that he has been to expos organised by Tribal Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Limited (TRIFED) in Delhi, this is TRIFED’s and his first stint here. “People are certainly curious about our art and they look at our paintings with interest,” he says but adds sadly that they have not sold too many canvas paintings. The canvas paintings, thick with a base colour, have still images from folktales and family-inherited snippets about nature and its whims. Priced anywhere between Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 15,000, they take more than two months to get finished, even if the artist is poring them through the day.

The legendary J. Swaminathan, Director, Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal, sought them out just like he did Jangarh Singh Shyam. “He brought us to Bhopal, where we live now,” say the two artists. Mr. Pusham, who is only 25, has been doing this since his teens and cannot imagine a life without painting. “These are stories we tell,” he says. “Some of them are even depiction of continuing traditions,” he adds, referring to the painting of a flame from a lamp being protected at a wedding so the bride has a long life. But they are all so deeply woven with nature that even in a story like this the images you see are those of wolf and pigs.

Adishilp is on at Webbs ground, M.G. Road, till October 13.