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Into the rural heart

The panorama of Indian villages comes alive.

RUSTIC NOTE A slice of folk tradition.

India does live in its villages or even if it doesn't our sensibilities are moulded by the rural ethos. Step inside the State Gallery of Art and the noise of the bulldozers working just outside the wall is blanked out as the creations of Deepanath on canvases stun you with their realism. It is not just the colourful clothes, the wrinkles, the longing eyes and the simplicity of the sketches that are the draw but the whole panorama of rural life. Deepa who works out of her home in Hyderabad doesn't limit herself to painting the rural images but captures the idiom by bringing in the bonds of relationships, completing the circle of life, as it were. Instead of relying on people's knowledge about art, Deepa's paintings have small commentary tagged on. For a girl with a lamb, the small note of the artist informs: "I like draping girls in traditional half saris (which is extinct in cities) ear rings, nose rings which enhances innocence. A few canvases away is the decidedly Kashmiri craftsman with an aquiline nose and dexterous fingers weaving the angeethi's bamboo cover. The note says: "Entire painting is done with knife. I am touched when I see senior citizens working in laborious conditions." The paintings don't stand in isolation, they are placed in a social context. Working in varied mediums ranging from acrylics, charcoal, pencil sketches, Deepa gets to the detail of the things. So, if some villagers are peddling some toddy or cooked stuff, the shape of the vessel is not just right, even the blackening on the bottom of the bowl is captured as is the koppu hairstyle. Deepa's craftsmanship gives a rough edge to the paintings as they are done in a style suggestive of hurry or amateurishness, but it isn't. The exhibition is on till October 8.

SERISH NANISETTI

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