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Saturday 22 February 2014
Vinita Dasgupta, 30
A large figurative portrait of a frail, distraught-looking lady set against the backdrop of Pattachitra paintings from Raghurajpur in Odisha adorns the wall at artist Vinita Dasgupta’s first solo show titled Storytellers. Although all her works on display were sold out, this is one piece that Dasgupta says she will never sell. “This is a portrait of my dida (grandmother) and she is my storyteller,” says the 30-year-old artist.
The series of paintings depicts a new pictorial style and artistic
practice that she developed three years ago after visiting Raghurajpur.
Although the village is known for its heritage of Pattachitra paintings
that date back to 5 BC, to the artist,
it is a cradle of early childhood memories and stories that her
grandmother used to tell her. Much like the Pattachitra paintings that
depict tales from Hindu mythology in a pictorial form, her grandmother
too would narrate mythological stories and folk tales. As Dasgupta grew
up and graduated from Delhi College of Arts, the memories of Raghurajpur
faded, but not the influence of her grandmother, who continues to be an
inspiration for her work.
“The biggest strength of a woman is her power to love,” says the artist.
“And it starts with the ability to love oneself.” That’s one of the
lessons that her mother and her grandmother taught her. No wonder
Dasgupta’s early works have a deeply autobiographical touch. She used
self-portraits to create metaphors of herself and her realisation of
womanhood. These early works are characterised by broad, free-flowing
brush strokes. “Here was a woman who painted like a man and that is what
drew me to her work,” says curator Rahul Bhattacharya. “But that style
comes naturally to her.” And she never changes her style until she gets
bored of it.
Although a personal connect with Raghurajpur drew her to the village
at first, the craftsmanship, detailing and precision of the folk
painters inspired her to incorporate elements of their work into hers.
“It was these artists who helped me realise that something ‘popular’
could also be deeply rooted in discipline and have a strong cultural
dialogue,” she says. Since then, Dasgupta has adopted a more controlled
technique and introduced new compositional elements in her work.
Artist : Vinita Dasgupta Photo: Vijay Pandey |
Although initially she transposed motifs from the village onto the
borders of paintings depicting popular personalities, they are now
deeply entrenched in her artwork. For her latest series, the artist
has painted Pattachitrakathas on small pieces of canvas, rolled them to
create small scrolls and used them to create an intricate detailing in
her latest series of portraits. “I have seen Vinita sitting in the
corner making canvas rolls for hours together,” says Bhattacharya, who
feels that Dasgupta’s drive to create art combined with her fidgetiness converts her art
into a meditative practice. “What makes her work unique is that it is
contemporary, yet embodies our heritage in the form of scrolls,” says artist Niladri Paul.
Although Dasgupta has never had trouble selling her work, the
detailing in her work is time-consuming; a single piece of work can take
her up to three months to complete. Her works can be bought for Rs 1-5
lakh. Though there are times when she has to struggle to make ends meet,
that is about to change with her first solo show being a runaway hit.
Perhaps she can now put her energies into refining her work.
(Report courtesy Published in Tehelka Magazine, Volume 11 Issue 7, Dated 15 February 2014)
Re telling a story teller:
Yet the search
continued, she discovered that to work with popular imagery she needed to
re-present them with greater conceptual layering. The gestural modernist within her can only be
deconstructed through a practice connected with tradition and discipline. Her
(re) discovery of Raghurajpur folk painting tradition finally leadsto this search
finding a resting place from where she can explore future directions. How do
craft, storytelling and meditative practice become carriers of contemporary
concepts? This body of work ‘The Story Tellers’ marks an
important turning point in her journey, specially reflecting a sustained
engagement with technique, inspiration and concept.
Odishahas been a part of
the artist’s childhood, and that nostalgia has played an important role in
Dasgupta being able to culturally respond to it’s artistic tradition. The
Raghurajpur folk painting tradition also offered her adifferent access to the
‘popular’, a ‘popular’ that was deeplyentrenched in a disciplined and controlled
approach to art. This art making is robust, colorful and yet deeply in dialogue
with the culture of contemporaneity. The philosophy of craftsmanship attracted
her deeply along with its notions of detailing, precision and the ‘handmade’. Moreover,
Raghurajpur offered her an escape from the noise of mainstream popular culture
as well as an alternative understanding of the narrative possibilities of art
making. Since her (re) visit to Raghurajpur about three years ago, newer pictorial
style and artistic practice slowly began to find space in her works. Initially
it was just motifs coming into the borders of her paintings depicting Bollywood
and popular personalities...and slowly it entered deep, deep into the artwork
itself.
The encounter with
Raghurajpur did not lead her throw away her personal love for the urban popular
traditions, instead what resulted is a complex layering of both. Taking
photographs of the Raghurajpur paintings,the artist painstakinglymakesnumerous
canvas rolls and usesthem to make portraits of painters, performers and story
tellersto make her world. Paint is given at a final layer of detailing that
helps the artist to develop a language that challenges the boundaries of
painting. This merging of boundaries makes her a child of postmodern
eclecticism and also gives her meditative therapy of craftmanship that her soul
has been looking for.
Apart from the artist’s
natural flair for figuration and an ability to strike a chord with portraiture, what makes her current body of works significant
is the possibilities of enquiries that they open and the complex layering of
folk and urban they embody. This layering of folk and urban also mirrors the
zone between art and craft that mark the physicality of her works. The inspiration
behind these rolls has been earrings she discovered where in Coke and Fanta
cans were cut and rolled. This dismembering and creation of a new identity
opened up the possibilities for Dasgupta to assimilate the Raghurajpur
paintings into her works and yet mask them. Over the last two years apart from
the painters and performers of Raghurajpur, other prominent personalities have
come in her artworks...almost as a continuation of her earlier subject matter.
However even though sometimes these popular mainstream icons enter her work,
their representation has completely changed. There is a fragmentation and
realignment that happens, this breaks their iconicity and positions them within
the vulnerability
of popular storytelling.
As
she moves deeper into understanding and practicing this direction in her
practice, she is also beginning to realize that within this idiom there is a
great possibility of conceptual fine-tuning and experimentation. These works
have captured the imagination of viewers, yet the artist is looking for more, eager
to walk a tightrope between making her practice more deeply personal, and
universal. The journey is to entrench her works deep into the dialog of
contemporary, yet go deeper into her love for craft and the handmade. The
Storytellers is standing on the edge, rooted and yet ready to take off.
Rahul
Bhattacharya
Curator
and Writer
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