ART AND CRAFT ‘NESTLED’ TOGETHER
A unique show ‘Nestled’ featuring two eminent artists Adip Dutta and late Meera Mukherjee is being held at the Experimenter Gallery of Kolkata. The show will continue till the 31 March 2021. ‘Nestled’ orbits a space of dialogue, of times spent together, of influences formed through a wide range of experiences, and of foundational moments of lucidity for Dutta and a loving, yet restrained, mentoring by Mukherjee.
Meera Mukherjee’s prodigious kantha works are not unaware of. Kolkata born Meera Mukherjee (1923-1998) was passionate about kantha, which she knew would eventually generate income for the women. She would commission the piece, pay the women and then sell the works. The revenue generated was used for the welfare of women living in challenging conditions.
Meera lived an astounding, extraordinary life as a painter, sculptor, writer and craft maker. She motivated the artist in children, made drawings with them and wrote books for them. Those drawings were further transformed into naive and enticing kathas by the skilled craftsmen which were further stitched into hand woven carpets.
“This development in community-based art started with encouraging children at Elaichi and Nolgarhat village to draw and paint, an outlet for their emotions and creativity. It spread to the women, who came to do her domestic work. Their knowledge of Kantha was honed and perfected to create these fascinating needlework paintings. Later some of these pieces were made into carpets by Abu Taher, a carpet weaver from North Bengal,” says Adip Dutta.
Adip Dutta, trained in Sculpture making, responds to objects, materials as a Sculptor. The Kolkata-based artist Adip Dutta, looks at found objects and sites and their banality as tools of labour and construction. According to the artist, his art practice spans between an act of drawing and object-making. His works are inspired by Mughal miniatures and works of artists like Nasreen Mohamedi, Zarina Hashmi.
Adip Dutta, Topographic Specimens, Ink and Brush on Paper, 2020
In the exhibition ‘Nestled’, the filigree drawings by Adip Dutta and naive kanthas by Meera Mukherjee together takes us back to the foundation of drawings using ink and thread.
Adip Dutta’s drawings have a subtle reflection of Ram Kumar’s landscapes in them. Just like Kumar’s attempt to entrap the loss as he departed from the places he had known intimately; Adip Dutta’s drawings portray a sense of displacement as well as abandoned spaces and places. In both the artists’ works, there is either an acceptance or a criticism of the circumstances.
Meera’s kathans where else are sheer innocence and childlike with no manipulation. They are what they are in its truest and purest sense.
The artwork displayed at the exhibition ‘Nestled’, has no direct pictorial connection. If only, It further helps the viewer in perceiving a fresh perspective where the two domains of Art and craft exist together.
Text by Rageshree Ranade
Image Courtesy: Artists and Experimenter Gallery
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