‘The artist is usually completely or largely involved in the platemaking and printing process in all printmaking mediums. Once the matrix is prepared, it goes through a process of proofing until the artist is satisfied. Once satisfied, a limited edition is printed from the matrix. Each proof and edition print numbered and signed by the artist is an original work of art, and must be treated and valued as such.’
I have spent the last few months debating and understanding the merits and importance of printmaking as a medium with the printmakers who had formed a collective in 2000 in order to popularize the medium and bring the younger generations of artists into their fold. Their initiative was titled ‘Multiple Encounters’ and the founding members were Vijay Kumar, K. R. Subbanna, Dattatraya Apte, Anandamoy Banerji, Kavita Nayar, Moti Zharotia and Sushanta Guha, practicing printmakers who were determined to showcase printmaking and towards this goal, worked single-mindedly.
In their conversations with me, the artists reminisced about the early years when each one of them had their own individual spaces at the Garhi Studios working alongside senior painters like Jagdish Swaminathan, Manjit Bawa and Krishen Khanna. Those were great years, indeed, when the art scene in Delhi was just establishing itself. New artists flocked to the capital and new art spaces were opening providing new opportunities. Sometime in the year 1990, a group of 12 printmakers decided to form a group they called the Indian Printmakers Guild, with the idea of focusing on their medium and exhibiting printmaking exclusively. While things went smoothly initially, differences soon arose and the artists parted ways. Sometime later, a splinter group teamed up with Vijay Kumar and K. R. Subbanna, Anandamoy Banerjee, Dattatraya Apte, Kavita Nayar, Sushanta Guha and Moti Zharotia who took the decision to continue working together. Their first collaborative show was titled ‘Multiple Encounters’.
In the next decade, their trajectory was not always easy as it depended on the vagaries of the art market and collectors. Yet, they persisted and showed, often in their individual capacities till an opportunity arrived from the newly refurbished Dhoomimal Gallery to exhibit, not only their works but also the gallery’s archival collection alongside. Circa 2023, ‘Divergent Practice: The Trajectory of Printmakers’ showcases the recent work of the printmakers’ group but also rare prints from Dhoomimal Gallery’s own archives of veteran artists. Taken in this context, the show acquires even more critical significance, offering the viewers a glimpse of valuable prints from different practitioners of the medium from times past to present.
Each artist has selected recent works—from Kavita Nayar’s fragile petals strewn on the ground to Dattrataya Apte’s impressions of textures as if created by the raking of arid and thirsty earth. Apte has experimented with intaglio, mezzotints, etchings and silkscreens and is today the master of his technique. Kavita Nayar’s sensual and fragile work, drawing inspiration from Franz Kafka, is deeply emotive and meditative. While she acknowledges gratefully the contribution of her gurus Sanat Kar, Somnath Hore and Dinkar Kaushik in shaping her artistic sensibilities, her own narrative is quite distinct. The leitmotif of flowers that bloom radiantly only to fade away and die is the subject of her present series that focuses on the regeneration of spirit.
Anandamoy Banerji began his artistic career at Lalit Kala Akademi’s Garhi Studios, where he created powerful etchings of violence and man’s existential crisis by portraying the fallen figure encountering catastrophes beyond his control. He has contributed his recent work, which grapples with those same themes but is technically stronger than ever. Sushanta Guha studied printmaking at Kala Bhavan, Shantiniketan, before migrating to the busy metropolis of Delhi. Social issues of the marginalized, particularly the lives of the city’s pavement dwellers, are the subjects that appear in his work again and again, along with global issues. Moti Zharotia graduated from College of Art, New Delhi and began his artistic journey by using photographs in silkscreen, juxtaposing images to deliberately distort the landscape and create phantasmagorical illusions of the natural world and its creatures. His dreamlike compositions of surreal landscapes are made in sensual pastel shades, which is quite distinct from the palette of the other printmakers.
From the non-representational prints to the simplicity inspired by Japanese aesthetics with regard to space and abstraction, there is a range of prints being showcased. The show aims to provide the viewer with an in-depth perspective on the trajectory of this significant genre that deserves to be more firmly a part of the mainstream. ‘Divergent Practice’ hopes to become part of an ongoing dialogue that draws in more participation from the younger practitioners of the medium.
Ina Puri, 2023
