An Alternative Contemporary - a celebration of contemporary miniature art. The exhibition Showcased the evolution of Indian miniature painting and its influence on contemporary artists. Curated by Waswo X. Waswo, telling us how various artists are preserving and re-imagining the art form through innovative narratives and experimentation with the form through video and other media.
I’ve always been fascinated by miniature paintings. I recall copying them from prints one could buy at Lalit Kala Academy in the 1970’s . I absolutely loved the detailed brushwork as also the stylistic rendering of perspective, trees, dress and people. In the early 1980’s I even embarked on a cross-stitch embroidery based on a well recognised miniature. I worked on it for a year, but never got around to finishing it. I still have the unfinished piece and marvel at the very idea of undertaking such fine embroidery. But, it’s the details that I do love, whatever the form or media.
Monique Romeiko and Vagaram Choudhary
totally transformed the miniature format. It was wild, creative and technically a feat to have created an artwork where the painting is static but people within it moved about doing yogic postures and other activities. The people are dressed in contemporary dress, in total contrast to the painted style. It was perhaps the most innovative work in the show
At the far end of Sunaparanta, below the main building, was a small but delightful Gallery tucked away round the back, which showcased the Company Style of Indian Miniature paintings, but with a difference. The paintings were framed by mounts painted with monochromatic patterns in gold on cream background, drawing from ancient textiles and spices - re-invoking the legendary spice Trade that was traded not in currency but with India’s famed textiles. They reminded me of the monochromatic colchas that Portuguese officials commissioned as gifts and for private trade.
The room itself was sheer magic with chairs, sofas, windows, a chaise lounge, chandelier and floor standing candelabra, drawn to perfection in black charcoal on the walls of the gallery. The chair and table beside it, in particular were so realistic that I kept trying to put my glass of wine on it, to free my hands to take a picture. If anything detracted from that charming exposition, it was the gold painted patterns on the mounts that lacked the finesse of brush that painted the miniatures they framed. These works were a collaboration between eight artists. Tulsi Nimbarak, Ghanshyam (chotu), Pawan, Raju Sharma, Sridhar , Kailashchand, Siddharth Gosavi and Dr. Seema Bhalla
Alongside the video by Romeiko and Choudhary, was a video by Eeman Masood literally re-inventing the miniature painting in a digital format. Rendered in true miniature style, the colours and medium transformed the traditional art form. It’s worth the minute watch, as Masood explores dreamlike qualities of a forest painted like a miniature, highlighting the spiritual aspects of miniature painting - where attention to detail and perfection of strokes in minute forms, evoked the very spirit of creation.
Almost akin to the magnificent formation of many creatures we find in the natural habitat of Goa. These days it’s the blue, brown and red dragonflies that charm : how nature has crafted them so small, so intricate, so perfect. Recently, I spied a couple mating as they hovered over the pool as I swam - floating on the aquamarine waters, mesmerised by natures craftsmanship
I missed the works from Waswo’s own studio, but he said that when curators include their work it reeks of self-promotion, so they decided not to participate in the main exhibition but painted the walls of the cafe, which is a covered courtyard. Here, he’s posing beside his painted image in the Angan.
Vinita Sharma, Piyush Sharma, Olivia Fraser, Waseem Ahmed and Manisha Gera-Baswani among others are also part of the exhibition and it was an eye-opener to see the range of work that is being created.
Mahaveer Swami paints the contemporary woman, her gaze ever-so seductive in a nivi-style draped saree. Something one hasn’t seen before in the traditional miniature format.
In Jignasha Ojha’s depiction of modern buildings, one finds a petite woman in a ghaghra down at the right hand corner of the works, tugging at the delicate strings “of all she owns in her home”. As it’s the woman who is attached to everything in the house that she’s made a home with. Taking them with her wherever she goes. Jignasha shared her own attachment to such things and was devastated yet also fascinated that contrary to her imagination there was a woman standing before her art, who had no sentimental value attached to anything in her home. That I had sold almost everything in my Gurgaon home before moving to Goa and hadn’t missed a thing. I remember looking at the emptied apartment and sensing how complete it looked empty as it did before, when it was a lived space, furnished with my stuff!
Ekta Singha interprets of layers of experiences with design motifs and other elements derived from Mughal, Persian and Rajput miniature paintings, evolving a contemporary vocabulary for the form on surfaces that are painted with metaphorical and personal references to miniature paintings.
The circular plaques with unevenly placed floral borders which are fading, broken and disfigured in parts, frame delicately painted forms like a broken fragments of a tea-cup, a woman with a long braid being pulled by unseen hands, a beetle-nut cracker and other such quirky images outlined in a dull tone of crimson, placed in a discreet curve of the plague, drawing one’s attention to their significance.
I was, of course, drawn into the broken cup, looking for the tea that was spilt, the stains it created, but it was bone dry. Without the memories of hundreds of pints of tea one has drunk through the mornings of living, without evoking the energy of stains. Just something so barren, so stoic in its brokenness.
Alexander Gorlizki’s work seemed to reference some elements that we’ve seen in Waswo’s own work, particularly the inclusion of western elements like a Beetle Volkswagen trailing a horse, a man dressed in jodhpurs blowing a bugle, an astronaut pushing a pram and a rotund gentleman replete with top hat and breeches riding a massive seagull. However, Waswo informed me that Gorlizki had been here long before Waswo, as his mother was a buyer from the US, so he frequented India a lot, was familiar with her culture and ideas such that aged eighteen he created a sculpture with Mahatma Gandhi’s trademark round spectacles. Which “was quite precocious”
All in all, a really refreshing experience. If you haven’t been to see it yet. Do go see the show
Unfinished embroidery (cross-stitch) based on miniature painting. (NOT IN EXHIBITION)
