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  • Japani Shyam
  • Nangushia Shyam
  • Shakuntala Kushram
  • Ram Singh Urvaty
  • Suresh Kushram
  • Ram Singh Urvatty
  • Hiraman Urvati
  • Kamli Kushram
  • Prasad Singh Kushram
  • Ram Sing Urvaty
  • Prasad Sing Kushram

Gond Paintings

Mapping lineage is the most problematic area in folk and tribal arts because of limited availability of archival resources or objects, the inherent impermanence of the materials and methods involved in the creative process. The historical evolution of ‘Gond’, or Pardhan painting or ‘Jangarh kalam,’ has to be understood in this background. A community of around four million people spread all over central India, Gonds have a recorded history of 1400 years. The word ‘Gond’ comes from the Dravidian expression ‘Kond’ which means ‘green mountain’.

Pictorial art on walls and floors has been part of the domestic life of Gonds, specially among Pardhans since it is done with the construction and re- construction of each and every house, with local colors and materials like charcoal, coloured soil, plant sap, leaves, cow dung, lime stone powder, etc. The images are tattoos or minimalist human and animal forms. In course of time, the diminution of agricultural life and social patronage has tended to reduce the Pardhans to a state of manual labor.

In the early 1980’s, the Bharat Bhavan art centre at Bhopal in Central India was started with a vision of establishing a common space for all kinds of contemporary art practices. The modern Indian painter and activist, J. Swaminathan led this mission with a passion for bringing forth the creative expressions of the rural folk and tribal societies in India. J . Swaminathan initiated young artist groups to go into the rural interlard to explore such expressions. While traveling in village Pattangarh, a group of such artists found a brilliant wall painting done by a young manual laborer aged seventeen called Jangarh Singh Syam, who later became a legendary name in the history of Gond painting.

Jangarh Singh Syam was invited to Bharat Bhavan where his creative practice did undergo sweeping changes. His inheritance in traditional music and storytelling provided him with a vast area of narratives which he articulated and transformed into paintings. This was a rare moment in Indian Contemporary art in which new materials and tools including canvases, acrylic, oil and pen were effectively adopted by a traditional/folk artist bringing forth unforeseen results. Jangar’s works started featuring in various galleries throughout the world and were received with great enthusiasm. From mid 1980s to’95, more than a hundred painters belonging to the Pardhaan community engaged themselves in the art of painting.

A new visual vocabulary was created by these artists by giving concrete visual shapes to their myths, legends, fables, tattoos and music, which were, till then, hidden from the ‘mainstream’ society. It was a paradigm shift in culture in which the historically marginalized gained momentum and ground in the narrative space of the country, and creative energy surged with the emergence of individuality in a traditionally collective society. Images, transcribed from oral narratives took shape as birds, flying snakes or growing trees, floating to the rhythm of music in diverse innovative variations.

Over the years, the Gond artists have developed their own devices to work with various contemporary mediums and materials. They would first make dots and calculate the volume of the images. These dots would be connected to bring about an outer shape, which would then filled with colours. As they respond to the immediate social situation and environment, each object they come across in life is aesthetically transformed.

“In such circumstances there is no inhibition for the painters to conceive a contemporary air craft, train or even the panoramic view of an airport as the subject of painting. But the airport may not look like the airport in naturalistic terms, but will be an airport in pictorial terms. Here, patterns are the most powerful element used by the Gond painter as her/his pictorial identity and individual expression. For the Gond painter, patterns are organic forms, not ornamental devices as generally observed by the urban viewers of art. Macro and micro image patterns of leaves, skin and textures of trees, ears of corn, young paddy shoots, crescent moon are some of the thousands of patterns which they appropriate into the pictorial language. It is not a matter in Gond iconography if an inorganic object like airplane might contain the patterns of seeds or flowers. For them the ethos of life is a mixture of myth and reality, of organic and inorganic forms.”

Portfolio Name: Gond Paintings
Source: Lalit Kala Akademi