The inspiration came when she was 12. Gayathri Shankar, a self-taught Tanjore artist, is a qualified computer analyst but chose to break away from a promising career to pursue her passion for art.
Not having formally studied art, Gayathri chose to learn from interacting with artists. She met artists, observed their work, asked questions, then experimented in her workshop and perfected the work after facing several setbacks for which “the solutions had to be personally researched, experimented and fine-tuned.”
The final product was perfection itself — be it the laying of the gold foils, the semi-precious stones or the facial features. Gayathri says, “My initial forays would throw up cracks in the board, patches would appear, the stones would be displaced, and this at times would happen at the tail end of the project. It would be heart-breaking to discard a piece into which I had put in so much effort. Yet, it is this effort, which finally brought in the required perfection. Tanjore paintings require a lot of patience as every step in the process is vital.”
After close to a decade of work, Gayathri started experimenting with three-dimensional Tanjore paintings. “Not many venture into this as it requires even more effort. Currently artists prefer to restrict their paintings to semi-three dimensional pieces.” Each of her three-dimensional pieces is unique as “they are handmade—I do not use a mould to cast them.”
Gayathri does not confine herself to traditional motifs, but ventures into modern depictions as well as design styles that could be used as part of the furniture or even a tile cladding the walls. “The applications for Tanjore paintings are enormous, as they can feature as table tops, wardrobes, doors, miniature wooden figurines, tea coasters, runners, book marks and embossed on floor or wall tiles.”
Gayathri is currently experimenting on using Tanjore paintings on large flower pots and lamp shades. “The process is yet to be perfected,” she smiles. Gayathri does not confine herself to Tanjore paintings alone; she also does murals from materials such as waste cloth, discarded cardboard, metal pieces, small stones, sand and coffee powder.
