Parallel Wings

Parallel Wings The Art of Rini Dhumal

Parallel Wings

• 2

• 4

• 5

• 6

• 7

Parallel Wings

The Art of Rini Dhumal

Sushma K Bahl Rini Dhumal Foreword by Anil Dharker

Mapin Publishing • 8

• 9

First published in India in 2017 by Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd 706 Kaivanna, Panchvati, Ellisbridge Ahmedabad 380006 INDIA T: +91 79 40 228 228 • F: +91 79 40 228 201 E: mapin@mapinpub.com • www.mapinpub.com International Distribution North America Antique Collectors’ Club T: +1 800 252 5231 • F: +1 413 529 0862 E: sales@antiquecc.com • www.accdistribution.com/us Rest of the World Prestel Publishing Ltd. 14-17 Wells Street London W1T 3PD T: +44 (0)20 7323 5004 • F: +44 (0)20 7323 0271 E: sales@prestel-uk.co.uk Text © authors Illustrations © Rini Dhumal Photograph of the artist on pp. 6–7, 165, 167 by Mahesh Padia All rights reserved under international copyright conventions.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-93-85360-29-9 Copyediting & Proofreading: Neha Manke and Ankona Das/Mapin Editorial Design: Amit Kharsani/Mapin Design Studio Printed at Parksons Graphics, Mumbai

Front cover Archaeological head, Bronze (also see p. 147) Front and back endpapers Untitled, Stoneware panel 25.4 x 12.7 cm, 2007 Page 1 Sphinx, Stoneware 48.2 x 48.2 cm, 2016 Pages 2–3 Part of the paniyaru, Stoneware (see p. 162) Pages 4–5 Untitled, Stoneware 76.2 x 25.4 cm, 1999 Pages 6–7 The artist at her home Page 9 Woman with Fish, Stoneware ceramics 50.8 cm (dia.), 2013 Pages 10–11 Untitled, Terracotta (Molela) (see pp. 104–105) Back cover Untitled, Terracotta (Molela) 25.4 cm (dia.), 2007

•

10

Contents Foreword Anil Dharker

12

Creative Constructs Sushma K Bahl

16

Immersed in Tradition Rini Dhumal

38

Catalogue

• Ceramics • Rugs, Tapestry & Glass • Paintings & Drawings • Bronze • Selected Works

46 114 128 144 154

Artist Biography 165 Acknowledgements 167 Contributors’ Biography

168

FOREWORD Anil Dharker

Some artists look like housewives, others look like bank clerks. This is not to denigrate home-makers or ledger-keepers: it’s just to say that not all artists look like artists. Rini Dhumal does. She has the look of someone steeped in art.

No wonder her house in Vadodara (or Baroda) looks like an artist’s house too, with its walls covered with paintings (many, but not all, her own). Where there are no paintings, there are tapestries, while on the floor, rugs and carpets complement the overall feel of artistic exuberance.

Yet, Rini Dhumal’s persona is not all that it seems to be from her work: she is serene, sunny and welcoming to guests, yet her art carries messages which are quite the opposite. Her women—and the feminine figure dominates her work—are wilful, defiant and occasionally even imbued with a latent aggression which tells the world they are not to be trifled with.

These women must come from her childhood in a Bengal which had just been partitioned, so that even in a happy childhood, there was the looming presence of alienation. Not all Partition-related migrations were violent, but there is also a violence which, although not physical, can be equally traumatic, and who knows what effect forced displacement had on a young girl who suddenly had to give up home and friends, and relocate elsewhere?

Perhaps all this is idle speculation. On the other hand, Rini Dhumal’s celebrated Ancestral Tapestry (2002), with striking visual Expressionist imagery, which draws upon her childhood memories of her family home before and after Partition, can give us some clues about the impact of events on the artist as a young child.

This is a magnificent work that grew over the years—the year 2002 only marks its date of completion.

Head – 4 Bronze 45.7(h) x 38.1(w) x 15.2(d) cm 2008

In this tapestry we find moods that are as varied as life itself—some sombre, some joyous, some celebratory, some painful. There are haunting portraits of family members, and in some of the women depicted here, you detect not just the trauma of displacement, but also of the general oppressive nature of the treatment of women in traditional society. It’s a complex work, and for those of us who try to delve into an artist’s mind, perhaps the Ancestral Tapestry holds the key.

•

13

•

14

What I find remarkable about Rini’s artistic journey is that in spite of the varied influences she has experienced, she remains very much her own person. Her art education took place in Baroda’s Faculty of Fine Arts, the institution that has been responsible for what is informally called the Baroda school. The art she saw in her early years in Bengal was mainly folk art; in Baroda, the predominant culture was Modernist. Later, she won a scholarship to study in Paris, which, of course, is the Mecca for all artists, its inspiration coming from its fabled history, its long artistic tradition, the seismic movements in art that it has produced, and, of course, its inspiring monuments. On returning to India, she worked with K G Subramanyan in Baroda, and with Somenath Hore in Santiniketan.

These are truly varied influences. However, influences can also be influential in an oppressive way, but only if you let them overpower you; otherwise, they are a way of widening your horizons and broadening the scope of your work. They can act as catalysts to what you want to be as an artist, a spur to your imagination. Rini has done just that: she is neither of the Baroda school, nor the Santiniketan school, nor of a Paris Atelier… she is, perhaps, all that, but first she is essentially herself.

What she has imbibed is the desire to explore different media. She paints, of course, in acrylic and oil as well as watercolour; she works on tapestries; her printmaking is at once imaginative and technically accomplished; her sketches lose nothing in their abundance. As a sculptor, she uses bronze and terracotta with equal ease. The subject, whatever the medium, is the female figure.

Whatever the mood of the painting, it is clear that the depicted woman is a person of immense strength: these are not women of male fantasies, submissive, docile, doing as they are told; they are women of substance and resilience, and their gaze is fierce. In her work, Rini has made imaginative use of Indian iconography: birds, animals and floral motifs, all reminiscent of our religious art. Some of the iconography even suggests that the subjects are goddesses. Or, is Rini suggesting that they are ordinary women who are no less than goddesses?

Another recurrent motif is of women with wings. These wings are not delicate or decorative, they are large and powerful. As if to emphasise the point, their feet are not feet but the mighty talons of the eagle. Rini’s women may be women of immense strength, firmly grounded in their outlook, but they are ready to fly when the time is right.

The Monk Stoneware 24.1 x 48.2 cm 2016

•

15

• 16

CREATIVE CONSTRUCTS

The Aesthetics of Rini Dhumal’s Art

Sushma K Bahl

Spanning a wide spectrum of creative constructs emerging from varied ideations and genres, Rini Dhumal’s art and aesthetics traverse across multiple modes and manifestations. Rooted and innovative, the versatile artist and her enduring creatives engage with figuration in a somewhat surrealist and narrative genre in different forms and media. An artist, thinker, social crusader, a people person and hardworking, strong-willed woman, she is also an ardent collector. A remarkable ensemble of pichhvai, Kalighat and other folk art paintings, Japanese woodcuts as well as works by senior masters and contemporary artists greet one on entering her beautifully designed home. Starting her career as a teacher, she has continued to paint, draw and create prints, sculptures, ceramic works, tapestries, murals, and designs. Rini’s multifaceted life and work revolves around art and artists, as is reflected in the vast repertoire that has been documented in two earlier publications and now overflowing into this third illustrated book, as she continues with her creative constructs in newer forms and modes of art with ever renewed vigour and vision.

Retracing the Roots Born in 1948 in a landowning family, the young Dasgupta girl spent long periods in her maternal grand-parents’ mansion in pre-Partition Bengal at Itakumari, Rangpur.

Her carefree and happy childhood spent in a loving, busy, bustling, traditional Bengali Hindu household has clearly left deep imprints on the artist’s poised persona and her creative track. Rini enjoyed participating in family festivals and pujas with attendant adornments, music, food and celebrations. She loved creating motifs on the floor and enjoyed the festive exuberance.

Untitled Ceramics 45.7 cm (dia.)

2013

A keen observer, sharp learner and romantic by nature, the young lady had made up her mind at an early stage that she would be an artist. Schooling at St. Anthony’s Convent in Mumbai was followed by study of art and literature for a year at St Xavier’s College, also in Mumbai, then Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda (now known as Vadodara).

A brilliant student with meritorious record, she recalls her days at the art college, “We were encouraged to go out, to the station or the bazar on every possible occasion, to sketch 100 drawings in one go.” This rigorous practice endows her work with a

•

17

finesse and fluidity, that helped her win a French government scholarship to study in Paris at Atelier 17, Sir S W Hayter’s printmaking studio. Although she enjoyed the Atelier experience as it helped refine her skills, she preferred her subsequent stint in Paris with the renowned printmaker Krishna Reddy, whose more holistic and poetic approach she found especially inspiring and formed a strong bond with. The excitement of her time in the Parisian capital with its vibrant cultural scene, be it Grand Palais, The Louvre and other rich depositories of art, was a source of great inspiration for the young artist.

On return to India, in 1977 Rini married Dhumal, her Baroda college-mate and friend. It was a happy outcome of a sustained courtship between two talented and independent-minded individuals from different socio-economic backgrounds.

The city-bred, out-going Bengali girl and the reclusive Maratha gentleman from a family of farmers bonded well together despite some initial socio-cultural difficulties and financial constraints. The duo set up their nest in an old rented bungalow in Baroda. Dhumal’s salary from his teaching job at their alma mater M S University was supplemented by Rini’s short-term assignment as a textile designer, working mainly in block printing. This experience also helped strengthen and sustain her painting and printmaking work during those initial days of struggle. The couple managed to save some funds and buy a small printing press and set up a printmaking studio at home where Rini could carry forward her graphic work after their daughter Radhika’s birth in 1978. A doting and caring mother, Rini is also a keen homemaker and an excellent cook. She worked on her art along with her home–hearth charge, with equal elan and joy. “I admire Rini’s resilience, who gave equal attention to her personal life as well as professional interests,” asserts her husband.

In 1984, Rini joined the prestigious M S University as a member of the Faculty of Fine Arts in the Graphics Department, later getting elevated to the post of Professor in the Department of Painting. She taught for nearly twenty years, enjoyed teaching and found the interaction with young minds stimulating. She introduced new techniques to her students. She taught them colour viscosity that she had learnt at Atelia 17 in Paris, at a time when very few artists were making colour prints.

She was much loved by her young students, encouraged them to experiment, helped set up their printmaking studios and promoted the medium. However, in course of time, when the pressures of a full-time demanding job began to impact her work, she decided to liberate herself and work on her own art—painting, and printmaking, as a freelance and at a time and pace of her free will.

•

18

She pursued her art work with passion and applied for all available schemes.

Winning the National Award at an early stage was a big boost for her career, followed by residencies and visiting fellowships at Santiniketan and Glasgow that added to

The Girl with Mask Black & white tapestry 106.6 x 106.6 cm 2008

•

19

her credentials. The combined influence of studies at the two differently inclined centres of art—Baroda as the then centre of excellence for socio-political art activism and Santiniketan as the heart for rooted lineage of Bengal School—coupled with her international exposure during those transitional times ingrained a multilayered oeuvre in her work. “I was fortunate to learn from several renowned Indian maestros and pedagogues,” says the artist, listing Prof. K G Subramanyan, Somnath Hore, Sankho Chaudhuri and Krishna Reddy, among others, as her role models. She admired Rabindranath Tagore’s versatility and felt inspired by the Bengal school artists. While respecting the master artists’ philosophical positioning and acknowledging them as her idols, the artist has successfully charted her course to find her own bearings and place in the art world.

Rini, based in Baroda, works across the country and dabbles in various media.

Adventurous by spirit, she has freely experimented and worked with different materials and techniques, including glass painting, sculpture, ceramics, weaving, drawing as well as writing, though her prime calling continues to be printmaking and painting.

Her refined and dense imagery engages with feminine themes. The goddess, often akin to Bengal’s much-revered goddess Kali or Durga, appears in different forms of her own imagination. Her female protagonist is matriarchal and lonely but also powerful and confident. Her transfixed gaze, kohl-rimmed, wide-open eyes, bedecked body and forehead often smeared with red bindi (dot) and other symbolic markings evoke compassion. The distinct aura of the artist’s work has won her several accolades, including the Chancellor’s Gold Medal in Baroda and Governor’s Gold Medal in Kolkata.

She is also credited with AIFACS, and LKA National, Group 8 and M S Randhawa awards. Rini’s work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in various Indian metros and overseas in Paris, Chile, Germany, Spain and at the Ueno Royal Museum in Tokyo. She also contributes to the development of contemporary Indian art through her membership of various committees and initiatives.

A compulsive, hard-working, innovative, versatile, prolific and passionate artist, Rini works furiously and hurriedly as she continues with her creative constructs in varied media, modes and manifestations. This voulme is an attempt to understand and appreciate the dramatis persona, review her creative sojourn beginning with her early years and take the reader through various stages of her life and work until now, with its focus on an exceptionally impressive and extensively varied repertoire.

•

20

Art Track Rini Dhumal’s art track is lined with remarkable innings and growth. It is expansive and multifarious, shifting its strands from painting to printmaking and interjections of other mediums. The repository, resulting from hard work and consistent experimentation, is inundated with forms—human, primarily feminine, enjoined with animistic and

Woman with Flower Ceramics 45.7 cm (dia.)

2013 (see p. 110)

•

21

•

22

Untitled Terracotta (Molela) 25.4 X 50.8 cm 2017

panchabhoota linkages. Having briefly veered towards abstraction at an early stage during her stay in France, she realized that her calling was in human form and decided to keep her art track rooted in the soil. Given her sense of aesthetics, a mind brimming with ideas, mastery in techniques and skilled hands, she can condense complex thoughts into amazing creative constructs. In a fine assimilation of abstraction, myth, landscape and conceptualization, the oeuvre emerges organic and engaging. Her renderings, whatever the form, its palette and tones echo the underlying narrative. The compositions are balanced to enhance the visuals. The taut and surrealistic imagery is reflective of the artist’s unerring sense of perspective, tonality and creative instincts. It is her “search for an innate identity” that engages with “cross projection of realities” in art, to quote her mentor K G Subramanyan.

Innovative in spirit, Rini has experimented with every accessible material and matter with remarkable results. The accomplished printmaker and painter has been experimenting and playing with different mediums—glass, ceramics, terracotta, wood, murals, bronzes, textile, tapestry, enamel and reverse painting on glass besides drawing, printmaking and painting on paper, canvas and board. There is an impressive body of drawings as travelogues, illustrated lithographs, screen prints, wooden screens, trays, vases, tiles, murals and other crossover artefacts that extend her aesthetic adventures onto different techniques and terrains. The sketches made during travels are worked on in the studio on return, turning them into masterpieces in charcoal, pencils and colours.

The vast gamut of enduring art track is inundated with her metaphor as the face, form and figuration of goddess in various incarnations of her own design and imagination. Marked with nuances, the protagonist comes across as a powerful yet benevolent primal figure, discomforting in one case and quiet in another. The archetypal goddess is divine and worldly, sacred and profane, fragile and bold—all in one. The wide-eyed gaze represents her anthropological leaning from one perspective and contemporary conceptual vantage course from another. The portrait could be of the divine Durga or Bhu Devi, the Goddess of Earth, or Mother Mary or the benevolent Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth, and by extension of fertility and prosperity, or the idol of Saraswati, the Goddess of Learning, or the Bengali courtesan Nati Binodini or a quintessential female. Pragmatic and confident, the nuanced organic motif and its accompanying narrative stands for cross-cutting hybridity as a creative flow in a blend of realism with myth, sexuality with somberness.

Rooted in the footprints of her childhood in Bengal, followed by life and learnings in two different cities—Baroda and Santiniketan, subsequently interspersed with encounters during studies and stints in Paris, Spain and other world cultures, Rini’s creative streak has been enriched and enlivened by multiple influences. The anecdotal

•

23

comes face to face with contemporary reality, interlaced with the imagined in Rini’s enduring artworks. Feminine form is the recurring protagonist in her drawings, prints, paintings and creations in varied media. The figuration, set mostly against a dark and surreal background, resonates with quirky renditions that accompany some of the imagery. There are thousands of paintings done in oil on canvas, mixed media on board and drawings and watercolour on paper as well as sculptures and works in other media that are integral to Rini’s multilayered artscape.

Though irrefutably Indian in its ethos, the oeuvre entails a touch of inspiration drawn from world art and renowned masters. “I draw for myself,” asserts the artist, known for her inquisitive mind and in-depth studies of art from around India and the world, visiting museums and galleries in different continents and cultures. Her fine draughtsmanship, fluid lines and sense of colour come alive in innumerable sketchbooks and diaries. The overflowing visual travelogues akin to photo albums capture people, places, cultures, customs, moments and memories.

“Drawings record the mood, touch and feel of the moment,” explains the artist, for whom they are intimate reminders of the places visited and people met, be it in Egypt, China, Cambodia, Europe, Burma, Turkey or Indonesia and their “physiognomy, and of the local flora and fauna”, to quote from the artist’s text in Drawn to Life: Sketchbooks of Rini Dhumal.

Series of paintings, prints, drawings and creative expressions in other media are part of Rini’s work underlined with her free will rather than commissions.

She has developed her personal artistic vocabulary through years of practice. The amazing compositions, elaborately bordered, are influenced by the pichhvai and miniature painting traditions of Rajasthan. The work in ceramics, weaving, metal, glass and other media illustrates coming together of hand and heart and of her collaborative spirit with inputs from craftspeople. Her exposure to a wide spectrum of cultures and geographies, ability to observe and imbibe tradition with innovation, her expertise in printmaking, drawing, painting, and other modes get reflected in the impressive body of work. She draws on her imaginative mind-space, historical details, anecdotal references, childhood memories and various journeys. She does what catches her fancy and takes risks, unmindful of its saleability. That her work sells well is an added advantage. She asserts there is no high or low art. It must, though, have a visual appeal and relate to the surrounding world and nature, even when loaded with message(s), veering towards a cerebral approach, and coated with a conceptual framework. Though not too tech-savvy herself, she admires the thematic and multilayered play in new media work by some of her contemporaries.

She is of the view that video and digital art can be effective, provided the subject calls for it and is used not merely to follow the trend.

•

24

Untitled Oil on canvas 91.4 x 91.4 cm 2016

•

25

•

28

The Singer Stoneware 48.2 x 72.3 cm 2006

alpana (floral and geometric painting on floor) that the artist still makes at home.

Down to earth in her approach to art and choice of materials and matter, the artist plays with clay, terracotta and ceramics to create nuanced art that pushes it beyond rigid and formal boundaries. “I love experimenting and working with different media, and do not worry about ‘what if it doesn’t work’,” says Rini. Some of her ceramic work is earth-fired and glazed. In the case of terracotta, its natural sepia-toned look and feel is retained. Whatever the medium, the work sporting an assemblage of human forms interwoven with flora and fauna is turned into amazing creatives. Much of the creations in ceramics come in the round, though some are also in flat surfaces. She treats the ceramic base just as canvas, painting over it with various strips and glazes.

When asked what inspired her to take to ceramics the artist explained, “We were encouraged to try and work with different media at the college, had role models like K G Subramanyan to emulate, cultural heritage of ancient India and our folk traditions to draw inspiration from. And then seeing Picasso’s multifarious creativity first hand in European museums just opened up my mind further to work with ceramics and other mediums.” The stylized ideation of female form featuring her genitals and fulsome breasts, in some cases squatting and displaying her life producing pudenda, is bold and beautiful, action incarnate and energetic.

Her painted vases and objects are inspired by what she saw in Greece, somewhat like those of the classical period. The vase refigures prominently in her large mural on display at the airport in Mumbai. Each of the fifteen blocks of ceramic tiles that make up the mural features some of the recurring elements that define Rini’s art. The central block features Devi at the top, what looks like a flower in the middle and a fish at the bottom. The surrounding forms add up to make a collage of the five natural elements and include a bird and sitar drawn, etched and painted in the earth-fired composition. There is also a collection of ceramic vases and tiles in different shapes and sizes that feature the iconic Devi surrounded by squabbles and meanderings of line work.

The work in stoneware includes a touch of abstraction and disjointed fragments of human form created in straight and zigzagged inlaid lines. There are rectangular panels and circular- and square-shaped plates in stoneware as well as fired glass that incorporate human and animal forms as well as elements of flora and fauna. A touch of the magical, fearsome and wild is anointed to the imagery coated in shades of browns, blacks and pastels. Also, there are slip-glazed and fired ceramic plates and platters in a range of warm reds and browns as well as cooling greys and blues with the quintessential Devi as the central image. In an interesting juxtaposition, the prime protagonist overlaid in some cases and ingrained in the

•

29

•

32

•

35

Sushma K Bahl is an independent arts adviser, writer and curator based in Delhi.

She is credited with initiating and leading on several significant creative projects across different art forms, creative domains, culture and education and involving international collaboration, including the festivals of India held in the UK in 1982 and South Korea in 2005. Bahl is former Head of Arts and Culture at British Council India and the author of 5000 Years of Indian Art besides several other books.

Recipient of the MBE for her contribution to India–UK cultural collaborative work, and the IHC Art India Award for her curation of Ways of Seeing art exhibition, Bahl is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA). Most recently, she has curated Forms of Devotion, an ongoing international art exhibition for the Museum of Sacred Art in Belgium, launched in Delhi and Bangkok in 2015, shown at the China Art Museum in Shanghai and in Spain until January 2017. Bahl also writes for various Indian and international art publications and journals and gives lectures on Indian culture, arts, crafts and heritage.

Anil Dharker is a noted columnist and writer based in Mumbai. At various stages in his life Dharker has been an engineer, film and TV critic and a film censor, a promoter of New Cinema (heading the National Film Development Corporation) and has written columns for most of India’s leading newspapers. As Editor, he has led some of the most well-known dailies of India—Mid-day and Sunday Mid-day, The Independent and The Illustrated Weekly of India. He has worked in television as producer and anchor, as well as head of a TV channel. He is also the Founder and Director of the Mumbai International Literary Festival. Literature Live!, the organisation he founded to run the litfest, also organises literary events through the year in different parts of Mumbai.

He is also the author of several books and his columns now appear in The Asian Age, The Financial Chronicle, Deccan Chronicle, OnStage and The Huffington Post.

MODERN & CONTEMPORARY ART

Parallel Wings

The Art of Rini Dhumal Edited by Sushma K. Bahl and Rini Dhumal 168 pages, 150 colour photographs 10 x 11.5” (254 x 292 mm), hc-plc ISBN: 978-93-85360-29-9 ₹2250 | $65 | £40 2017 • World Rights

ISBN 978-93-85360-29-9

www.mapinpub.com