Tribal artists: Five painters masterfully weave the past with the present

Clay magic: Sonabai's clay figure and (below rigth) Neelamani Devi's potsThe artist normally wears a pullover, trousers and rather nifty sports shoes. But a few months ago, a Delhi art gallery showing his work asked Jangarh Singh Shyam to get into tribal gear for its promotional blurbs.So off went the shirt and trousers and there he was, bare-bodied, with just a loin cloth for modesty's sake (one supposes) and all the beads and trimmings to make him look like the real McCoy: the noble savage untouched by modern civilisation. On display and performing for the city's cognoscenti, and his work supposedly pristine in its primitive purity.And that, largely, is how contemporary tribal artists and their work - packaged as collective and, worse, fossilised in some nebulous far-reaching past - have been presented. "They are often made to play the clown, adding more and more bison-horn and cobra-hood headgear to their own personal selves and to the images of their gods especially designed for the ethnic art market," writes Jyotindra Jain, senior director of the Crafts Museum, in the catalogue accompanying the remarkable exhibition, "Other Masters. Five Contemporary Folk and Tribal Artists of India". Curated by Jain, the show, which opened last week at the Crafts Museum in the capital, restores the artists and their work to their rightful place in contemporary Indian art. The exhibition reveals how alive, evolving and indeed individual the work of the five artists really is.And contemporary. It's no accident that Jain has used the word "masters". Traditionally, folk artists are relegated to the world of anonymity and signatureless-crafts: something to be found in various emporia and exported in bulk. Whereas, the term "master" has, says Jain, "been used to imply a unique ingenuity or talent, turning individuals into celebrities".Not only have the artists represented here evolved and left their imprint on the traditions they have inherited, they have also influenced other artists. Their art has moved on. More important, these artists are not indistinguishable parts of a collective identity. Their art has also gone personal. Traditional art forms serve as a palimpsest for chronicles of their lives.Past as present: Jangarh with his paintings; (below right) Jivya Soma Mashe puts the train in the sacred rectangular space; his ancient world sucking in the new invaderThe most touching example is the late Ganga Devi, a Padma Shri recipient from Chatara village in Bihar's Madhubani district, whose Mithila paintings can be found the world over. While her version of the Ramayan may have been influenced by her unhappy marital life, her "Cancer Series",Washington Monument and Cycle of Lifeshow how she has transplanted traditional forms and symbols into new contexts. Ganga Devi has used the narrative form for some fine and poignant story-telling.In the "Cancer Series", she begins with the discovery of her cancer and then takes it forward pictorially through her meetings with several doctors - some of them greedy quacks - on a journey which is interrupted by a flood, a stalled train and finally hospitalisation in Delhi. .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}What is interesting is the way she has woven family rituals into the story and incorporated new symbolism, particularly the ceiling fan which is like a leitmotif. The fan becomes very important as she lies down on the operating table.The personal also collides magnificently with the artistic in the clay reliefs and figures in the work of Sonabai, the 67-year-old artist from Sarguja district in Madhya Pradesh. Lonely during the long stretches when her husband was away in the fields, she created her own companions: clay figures of gods, goddesses, animals and dancers. While the clay relief work done in her region may have been the starting point, she changed both the vocabulary and world of the traditional art. Her stand-alone figures in fluorescent coloured shorts and T-shirts could well be called "the United Colours of Benetton", jokes Jain.The individual intrudes into and diverts from the traditional path in the work of 59-year-old Manipuri potter Neelamani Devi. Instead of just dumping the pots which had accidental smoke stains, the artist translated those very defects into works of art - just like video defects were exploited as special effects. The textures and whimsical abstractions lent by the smoke stains give an individual quality to her work.The work which is truly epic, both in its scale and world-view, is of Warli painter Jivya Soma Mashe, the 65-year-old artist from Maharashtra's Thane district. He has invented new pictorial narrative devices for his complex paintings; in fact he has done a mural for this show. If anything, his work, which ripples continuously, makes him seem like a spider weaving endless webs out of contemporary life, old myths and legends. Slice of life: Ganga Devi's deeply personal and poignantHis ancient world sucks in the new invaders: trains, fans, people and, yes, he even takes his story over to the Crafts Museum where he shows himself working. Jangarh, who is a Gond tribal from Mandla district in Madhya Pradesh, has also absorbed the modern and urban world into his scheme of things, transforming them so that they bear his distinct imprint.For example, his painting of an aeroplane which he made for Bhopal's new Vidhan Sabha, looks like an insect and his birds are composite figures. None of his works are static or frozen in some primitive past. There is movement and vibrancy.So, no more beads for Jangarh, who should now also change his name. It's short for Janaganana and means census. And therein, as Jain explains, lies the irony: census officials visited his village the day he was born and advised his family to name him thus. What's in a name? Plenty.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Feb 9, 1998--- ENDS ---

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Tribal artists: Five painters masterfully weave the past with the present

Five painters leave their imprint on the tradition they have inherited and masterfully weave the past with the present.

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