For an artist, being in solitude can be a boon. Sangeeta Gupta, who was Chief Commissioner of Income Tax (Delhi), until she retired in May 2018, has made the best possible use of the coronavirus lockdown.
She is working on a series of 85 paintings titled Aadiyogi Shiv: a Journey in Cosmic Indigo, each done on khadi . They will eventually be stitched together to form a continuous 200 metres. She hopes to send this as an entry to the Guinness Book of World Records.
Painting isn’t new to her though: she had her first show in Kolkata in 1995. Inaugurated by Mother Teresa, the proceeds went to Child Rights and You, a not-for-profit working for the benefit of children. So far, she has participated in over 150 group art shows and 35 solo painting exhibitions across the country and overseas, exhibiting work in oil and acrylic on canvas.
Sangeeta conceptualised this project last December. She made the sketches and purchased khaddar, natural indigo, and dyes in Sanganer, near Jaipur, in Rajasthan. Shiva’s symbols like the damru, trishul , his third eye come alive on the coarse khadi fabric.
“I started painting in February, with dabu ,” she says. Dabu is mud-resist printing, where mud is painted or printed on fabric in a design (Sangeeta used her paint brush), covered with saw dust, and then sun-dried. After that the cloth is soaked in drums of indigo dye, washed and dried again. “We needed to cut the cloth as the 200 metres could not fit into the drums.”
Excerpts from an interview:
Has thecoronaviruslockdown givenyou more time to wrap up your work?
When artists work, they are in solitude; they are preoccupied with their creativity. This pandemic brought all social life to a halt and in a way I was drawn to Mahamrityunjaya Mantra (a chant from the Rig Veda). I painted the text with brush in natural indigo. I died the khaddar first in light shades of indigo, dried it, and then painted on the cloth again with dark shades of indigo. I completed 185 meters in nine days in Sanganer, and returned to Delhi on March 4 because COVID-19 had started spreading near Jaipur. The rest of the 15 meters I completed painting in my gallery Prithvi Fine Art and Cultural Centre, in Safdarjung Enclave, Delhi. In fact, March 30 was the last day of work.
Why did you choose Shiva?
I have always been a spiritually inclined person, but with maturity my interest in the eternal cosmic entity Shiv became deeper. He is omnipresent, both inside and outside of us. My love for him started in my childhood. Kashmir reiterated my faith in the universal principle of Shivohum (a set of mantras written by Adi Shankacharya), as the state is known for Shaivism. Staying there for two years, I was greatly influenced by it. How did you work with the medium of cloth?
Subject and medium merge when the artist is at peace with herself. If you are experiencing love, compassion and bliss, the medium doesn't bother you. I just had to train my hands a bit to use dabu as a medium on fabric.
Why did you choose khadi?
We have to return to the basics if we want to survive in peace. Handmade fabric is environment friendly and natural colours and dyes are handmade too, and free of artificial chemicals. The intent behind my work is to encourage the revival of indigo cultivation, and to make this cash crop a mass movement. Only then can we make indigo a commercially viable venture for farmers, dyers, and craftspeople. We need to encourage print makers to merge contemporary art with traditional crafts of block printing with natural dabu and organic indigo.