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It is not easy to be a young printmaker in India today. While painters and sculptors have become marketworthy, and enjoy considerable recognition, getting easy invitations to camps and foreign jamborees, printmakers are being turned away by both the gallery and the collector. The printmaker generally finds it difficult to access the infrastructure required for making prints if s/he is not part of an institution with a printmaking set-up: s/he has to often turn to painting in order to survive-an alternative very few printmakers really want to take recourse to. What is even more galling to many committed printmakers is how established painters/sculptors attend printmaking camps and 'try' and make prints. These prints are then sold at high costs. People involved in the business of art suggest that a print made by a painter or sculptor has a much higher emotive content and appeal than one made by a printmaker. The printmaker is believed to be obsessed by the technical process- so much so that it is believed that s/he turns a blind eye to the 'content quality' of the work!
Sharath Kulagatti. Untitled. Etching.
21" x 22". 2005.
In Baroda, the post-graduate programme in Printmaking at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M. S. University, offers courses in all standard printmaking techniques-etching, serigraphy, lithography, linocut, woodcut, mono-print, dry point-and for a while, a special course in paper-making (when Anupam Chakraborty taught there) was also introduced. Reputed printmakers such as Naina Dalal and Jyoti Bhatt have installed printmaking presses in their studios for their personal use. The Dhumals' studio, Printmakers (by invitation), and Kavita Shah's Chhaap studio (for a fee), also offer printmaking facilities to artists.
Balaji Ponna. H for Home, H for Homo, H for Hutch. Etching (Aqua). 14 cms x 16 cms.
2004-05.
In the last few years, a significant number of students enrolled with the Faculty for post- graduate studies in Printmaking have been graduates of the Andhra University Department of Fine Arts, Visakhapatnam-one of the few institutions in the country offering Printmaking as a major at the under-graduate level. Among the young printmakers who have made an impression from the Visakhapatnam stable are Kodanda Rao, Subhakar Tadi, and Simhachalam Dollu. Others include Sharath Kulagatti from Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore, and Balaji Ponna from Santiniketan. All of them have continued to live and work in Baroda even after graduation, and now show their works at local galleries.
Simhachalam Dollu. Untitled.
Etching. 12" x 18". 2005.
Sharath Kulagatti, a 2003 AIFACS awardee from Karnataka, spent two years at the Lalit Kala Akademi studio in Bangalore, honing his skills as a printmaker before coming to Baroda as a student. Kulagatti uses bold strokes to achieve a textural quality in his images of ambiguously erotic objects like shaving brushes, pincers, and hammers. Currently, Kulagatti spends his days at the Chhaap studio, making etchings, while working on drawings and paintings at home. Trained to think as a printmaker, Kulagatti has come up with paintings that draw inspiration from his prints.
Another artist, Balaji Ponna, decided to settle in Baroda because he felt the place offered young printmakers facing common problems a sense of community. Balaji uses irony and satire with the ease of a cartoonist in his recent Alphabet series, printed at Chhaap, which combines humour and social commentary with skill.
Kodanda Rao, Subhakar Tadi, and Simhachalam Dollu studied printmaking under T. Sudhakara Reddy in Visakhapatnam. Kodanda Rao was born into a community of shepherds and was supported by them to attend school and college-it was here that his creative talent got spotted. Perhaps, because he grew up around goats, this animal has occupied central space in Rao's works. His prints speak to us of issues concerning life, death, survival, and morality. One of his prints was awarded an Honourable Mention at the 6th Bharat Bhavan International Biennale of Print Art, Bhopal, in 2004. Although he is currently working on a series of drawings and paintings at the Space artists' studio, printmaking continues to be his passion. Simhachalam Dollu, whose prints are based on themes related to theatrical masks and emotional masks 'worn' by people, is also preparing to make a foray into painting.
Kodanda Rao. Smoke is Smoke, Love is Love.
Etching. 50 cms x 60 cms. 2005.
Subhakar Tadi says that there are a number of scholarships available for printmakers. "However, one is disappointed and frustrated by the impenetrability of the market", he observes. His prints at the De Preinte group show at the Kaleidoscope Gallery in Baroda stood out amongst works by printmakers such as Jyoti Bhatt, Naina Dalal, Kavita Shah, Vijay Bagodi, Jayakumar, and others. However, like a number of his peers, he has also turned to painting to earn a livelihood. "My paintings are also black and white like my etchings," he says wistfully.
Digital Printmaking in India
Rahul Gajjar. Pitch Trefoil. Digital print.
With computer technology becoming progressively more accessible from the late 1980s, quite a few artists began exploring the possibilities it offered. Senior artists like Anjolie Ela Menon and Gulammohammed Sheikh made digital prints, which they further worked on manually. Jyoti Bhatt, always the intrepid experimenter, added/distorted existing print-imagery, giving a tongue-in-cheek meaning to the notion, 'new and improved'. Akbar Padamsee, on the other hand, exhibited works that were wholly visualized and executed digitally.