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Magazine
Art, imagination and the everyday
SHALINI UMACHANDRAN
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Gond artists Bhajju Shyam, Durga Bai and Ramsingh Urveti explain what lies behind their painstakingly detailed and stunning paintings.
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Photo: K.V. Srinivasan
Art is integral to life: The artists at the launch of their book.
In a classroom in Chennai’s Olcott Memorial High School, a little boy bashfully holds up a sketch of a coconut tree and says, “I drew it because it’s a tree I like. No other reason.” But Gond artist Bhajju Shyam sees much more
: “In the south you use coconut in food, they’re essential for puja, these trees are in your homes,” he tells the boy. “By drawing this tree, you’ve unconsciously depicted something that’s important to you, something of your culture.”
He goes on to explain that the Gonds, a tribe from Madhya Pradesh known for their exquisite art, use such everyday symbols in their paintings. “We create paintings with stories from what we see around us. We all draw from what is part of our everyday lives.”
Means of sharing
Bhajju Shyam, and fellow Gond artists Durga Bai and Ramsingh Urveti, were at the school recently to conduct a week-long art workshop based on their new book The Night Life of Trees. The three told the children about their community, traditions and stories, while explaining the concepts behind their painstakingly detailed and stunning art. Simple and easily understood symbols are the link between imagination and the everyday in Gond art. To them, art not only has aesthetic value but is also a means of sharing stories and sustaining traditions. Gond art is replete with such symbols — a porcupine stands for danger, a snake for the earth, and each tree has its own story or special significance.
This is the basis of the art for The Night Life of Trees, a beautifully created screen-printed handmade book from Chennai’s Tara Publishing. The book brings together these elements of Gond art and the tribe’s close relationship to nature. Although the Gonds no longer live in the forest, trees form an integral part of their imagination.
“We grew up with trees, they are important to us, so we draw them,” says Durga. “We have always drawn trees, animals, birds, creatures of the forest,” says Ramsingh, who has done 11 paintings for the book. “For the book, I considered the way my community reveres trees, how we use trees everyday, our relationship with them, our dependence on them, and used my imagination to bring all this into my art.”
An exhibition of the original artwork from The Night Life of Trees opened in London in October 2006 and has travelled to Paris and across the United States. After its run in Chennai where it opened a few weeks ago, the exhibition travels back to the U.S. For Bhajju, Durga and Ramsingh, this is reason to cheer but “painting is what we do. It’s what everyone in our community does. It’s part of our tradition”.
Part of tradition
Traditionally, the Gonds painted on the walls and floors of their homes — patterns, lines and geometric designs in four basic colours. The art was not as stylised or detailed as it is today, but everyone in the village, from children to elders, has always painted, and they see art as integral to life. Earlier, the art had a more ritualistic, ceremonial role; this has changed over the last two decades with the Gonds moving to the city and selling their work.
The artist largely credited for this change is the late Jangarh Singh Shyam, whom the three call their guru. “He was the first to adapt our art to canvas and paper,” says Ramsingh. “He said we should interpret the beliefs of our community in new ways to carry on our tradition.” Recently, one of Ramsingh’s paintings was licensed by publisher Adelphi for the cover of the Italian edition of Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss.
Durga moved to Bhopal with her husband soon after her wedding, and it was Jangarh who recognised her talent and flair for storytelling. “He even taught me how to hold a brush. At first it seemed alien in my hand, I had only drawn on the floor and walls with mud and cow dung,” says Durga, who has sold her work across the world and whose other books with Tara Publishing have been translated into German, French, Dutch and Japanese.
Bhajju’s story too is somewhat similar: “Like the others, I had painted at home from childhood but didn’t see myself as an artist. I went to Bhopal when I was 16 to earn for my family back in the village.”
Jangarh’s gentle cajoling convinced Bhajju to stop working as a watchman and assist him. Bhajju has since won national awards, exhibited his work across the world, and authored the popular and critically acclaimed London Jungle Book, a stunning visual travelogue that expresses, in a rather unique way, his impressions of his first trip to London to paint the walls of an Indian restaurant.
“Painting just draws you in, and we can spend the entire day working. Jangarh asked us to adapt our art, find new forms for it, carry it forward. We keep trying to do this,” he says.
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