Around 30 minutes from Jaipur, on Ajmer Road, is Ritu and Surya Singh’s farm. They have a garden, four rescue dogs, and tonnes of scrap. Collected over several years, “every little space is full of it”. But the artist duo, who goes by the name Wolf, doesn’t mind it. “It is our treasure,” says Ritu, 40. The ‘found objects’ go into creating their art pieces — some of which have been exhibited at festivals such as the Jaipur Literature Festival and Kochi Muziris Biennale. Soon, some of it will be travelling to a museum in Texas, United States, too.
Yesterday, their latest show, Ultramarine , opened at Baro, a creative design store in Mumbai. The title suggests an underwater theme, but it is also an ode to the deep blue colour used in Rajasthan’s miniature paintings 400 years ago. Back then, large blocks of lapis lazuli, a metamorphic rock, were painfully ground to get just a few grams of the colour, which was used to paint skies, seas and gods, Surya, 41, explains. It was a long, strenuous process, and artists worked on it for days together. And while the duo hasn’t used the original ultramarine, their art creation process is no less easy.
“Baro’s relationship with Wolf is not new; this is our third show with them. We chose to work together because we love where they come from: trying to ‘slow down’, to re-claim ‘play’, to dwell on conversations and human interactions,” says Baro’s co-founder Srila Chatterjee. “Their whole philosophy of giving new life to junk and waste is really the most important thing the world needs to focus on now.”
Miniature in focus
Just like how miniature artists worked with small amounts of gold, silver and precious stones, Ritu and Surya used “small bits of the scrap” in their work. There are pieces made using carpets, broken jewellery, chillums , springs, beads, and marble cheese boards, which they found “about five or six years ago in Jaipur, lying in a corner, when we were walking in an area lined with marble shops”. “They represent our water world,” says Ritu, who worked in advertising before starting Wolf with her husband. “Each of them is painted differently on both sides, like a manuscript. Most of the miniatures were in this form — with text on one side and an image on the other. In our pieces, there is water on one side, and an image on the other.”
Though they’ve always been inspired by miniature paintings, it was only last summer, while holidaying in Greece, that the idea of giving it a modern twist came to them. Diving in the cool blue waters in Santorini, the world slowed down and inspiration struck. They came home and started work on Ultramarine , which conveys both the depth and the medium of miniature paintings.
Reuse, recycle
Each of the 12 artworks comprise several layers. In some, the first layer is an abandoned architectural drawing of the region, the second a miniature painting done by an in-house artist, and the next few layers made out of scrap. “The more you deep dive into Ultramarine , the more things you will discover,” says Surya. And the best way to appreciate the work is to touch, hold them in your hands, and then pass on to the next person, they insist. “The show is a sensory experience.” Visual beauty is just one part; the art will be accompanied by the fragrance of sandalwood and vetiver (seen in most Rajasthan homes), and the soft tunes of Indian classical music (from sitar artiste Vilayat Khan to music by Nitin Sawhe).
“This show is special for so many reasons. Each piece is an invitation to slow down and study the finer details of the work, [which also] translates into a metaphorical suggestion to slow down and appreciate life and the environment. From the framed artworks to the installations, every detail is worthy of study and discussion,” says Chatterjee.
The couple hopes that visitors will take back pieces from the show and create their own installations at home. In this process, they may begin to think about what they are discarding, and ask themselves if they can turn it into something beautiful instead. But more importantly, they want people to be in the moment, notice the little things, and appreciate life a little more. Slow down — just like how everything does when under water, they say.
At Baro till October 20. Priced from ₹100 (sea urchins from gas burners) to ₹2.5 lakh.
