Paper Punch

Two ongoing exhibitions in the city are now focusing on paper works— the first,titled the Medium Speaks Back,at Gallery Art Konsult has rare works by the New Bengal School stalwarts like Rabindranath and Gaganendra Nath Tagore,Chughtai,Ram Kinker Baij and Somnath Hore,Nandalal Bose and Hemendranath Majumdar of the the pre-independence era. Vadehra Art Gallery is showcasing an exhibition titled Paper Trail of works by artists from the Progressive Artists Group like FN Souza and Ram Kumar,to the next generation of artists like Bhupen Khakhar,Rameshwar Broota,Arpita and Paramjit Singh. Jogen Chowdhury and Ganesh Pyne are the third generation featured in this show. The third exhibition is a solo show of up and coming artist Uma Shankar Pathak at gallery Art Alive this August.

Several senior artists too are of the opinion that paper art works are on their way to being revived. Rameshwar Broota believes that with changing times and the arrival of archival paper it has become possible to increase the life of a paper work up to 150 years. “The photographs that I am showing are museum quality with special inks. People do prefer a work they can grow old with it,which is justifiable since they are spending a lot of money on it. But now even the framing is done on acid-free mounts,so a paper work is just as resilient,” says the artist who has recently turned to photographs.

Paramjeet Singh,another artist who works with both canvas and paper,says,“Many mediums like watercolor,charcoal,prints and lithography rely on the uniqueness and yielding quality of paper. As an artist who works on both mediums,I think the only difference is that the canvas gives rise to broader bolder strokes while paper work is finer and more personal.”

“It is not true that a canvas guarantees longevity,I know of many canvases that accumulated fungus. It really depends on the skill and technique of the artists. The prejudice against paper works is a classical view,” says Broota. “Much of it is changing now and there are buyers ready to invest in paper works,” says Sunaina Anand,director,Art Alive. “The market is less hesitant and is slowly opening up to works on paper as much as oil on canvas,” she adds.

Encouraged by the arrival of international quality paper on the Indian scene,many contemporary artists like Riyas Komu are exploring working with paper. His portraits of footballers are done on archival paper,while Gallery Ensign,which launched in the Capital this May,specialises in paper art and encourages the concept of affordable art. Their opening exhibition,The Living Insignia ,featured works on paper by 21 artist,and had a price range beginning at Rs 15,000. Artist like Jagdish Chinthala from Hyderabad have gone a step further to experiment with paper sculpture,as has Mumbai based Baptist Coelho. While Chinthala displayed his works at Ensign,Coelho showed his installation of paper planes at Gallery Espace’s anniversary show.

One of the reasons for the growing demand for paper works is because of the enhanced methods of preservation. One method of preserving art work that are not made on acid-free paper is to cover it with a protective melted PVC sheet,while more basic approaches include framing all the paper works and never hanging them in direct sunlight. “As a young collector my wife and I began our collection with only paper works since they are more affordable. Later though I continued to buy quite a few paper works because some of the major watercolours and gouache works of an artist like Anandajit Ray is done mainly on paper,” says Rahul Baswani. Dinesh Vazirani director of saffronart.com,the online art portal,says that there is a huge mid-market range of people willing to buy paper works. “With the number of canvases available of the coveted artists shrinking in the market,people are turning to buying paper works,” confirms Vazirani.