Monday 15 November 2010

Sharad Kumar, Contemporary Madhubani Artist

Article: (How he took Madhubani Art form to Paper Mache, products)

EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

He grew up with the Mithila motifs. His toys were the colours his grandmother and mother mixed. And he particularly liked fashioning figures out of the papier mache pulp which was available in plenty. That's how it was young Sharad Kumar, grandson of one of the pioneering Madhubani artists, Chandrakala Devi. Chandrakala along with Sita Devi and Ganga Devi is considered one of the founder artists of the Madhubani school who transferred with ease the colourful paintings from the walls to paper and fabric. Chandrakala, who was given the national award in the eighties, added yet another dimension to the art of Mithila. This was the introduction of papier mache to Madhubani by making panels and then etching out motifs on them.

But it is Sharad who has exploited the medium to its full potential by making sculptures in which he takes the traditional symbols and works them out with a contemporary vision. A commerce student, 23-year-old Sharad quit college to bridge the gap that exists between the the traditional and the modern artists. Interestingly, he chose the creative inheritance which came from women. His father, Arjun Kumar, is a professor of animal husbandry in the agricultural university at Patna. Sharad's sculptures have attracted notice and his works have already featured on the covers of the Inside-Outside magazine as part of the decor for the interiors of art promoter Rajeev Sethi's house.

"I started by making panels and small sculptures in paper pulp. But the medium enchanted me. I moved on experiments by adding different ingredients which would make it more pliable,'' says Sharad. Exposure came to Sharad when he participated in a workshop at Orissa in which traditional and contemporary artists came together. Artists like Jatin Das, Manjit Bawa, Anjoile Ela Menon and others tried their hand at Sharad's paper pulp. ``I was very happy to meet these artists and see how they worked. It was a whole new world opening before me,'' he says. Soon, Sharad's sculpture was selected by the Lalit Kala Akademi to feature in the National Exhibition (1995-96).A moment of joy for the young artist.

Sharad had already experimented by fashioning out furniture in paper pulp. ``What I added to paper pulp was methi seed powder to guard it against termites and tamarind seed powder to give it strength,'' says the artist. Now he turned his attention to using the medium for sculptures. Besides the beauty of the form, Sharad has been experimenting with varied textures in any one sculpture. The results are quite amazing, be it figurative work or abstraction. His felicity with the medium got him the opportunity to design the backdrops for the fashion show at the J.D.Annual Design Awards -- 1996 held a couple of years ago at Hotel Le Meridien. And interesting journey indeed for Madhubani from the village huts to the scene of high fashion.

What is remarkable about Sharad's attitude to art is that he retains essentially the soul of a traditional artist. His dearest possession is a photograph in which Sita Devi, the grand dame of Madhubani, is giving him her blessings.In spite of the attention his sculptures have drawn, Sharad is in no hurry to hold a solo show. This would be the first thing a contemporary urban artist would do. ``I will hold a solo show but I want to first complete the projects which will benefit Madhubani art as a whole. The solo show will benefit just me, '' he says.

Among the projects that he is involved in is the writing of a bi-lingual book on Madhubani art in Hindi and English. He has nearly completed the manuscript which is fully illustrated with a detailed decoding of the symbols and geometrical patterns of Madhubani.

"The most authentic book on Madhubani remains Art of Mithila by French scholar Yves Vequad who spent seven years in Bihar doing research. Many other people have worked on this subject but till date there is no book for the students of Madhubani. My book is aimed at the students and takes an exhaustive look at the elements that go into the making of Madhubani,''says Sharad. He is dedicating the book to late Pupul Jayakar, who worked for the promotion of traditional artists.

His latest venture in the Delhi schools in collaboration with another artist, Atul Johri, is aimed at eliminating the poly-bag menace by using the bags for the basic structure of the papier mache sculptures. ``I have been doing this in my own work and a big sculpture can take in hundreds of bags''.

Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.


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