Drawing may be called the crystallization of an idea. To many artists, drawing is that integral part of the artistic process wherein many a nebulous thought is actualized with lines, textures, shape and form.
Drawing sensibilities pervade all visual media yet drawing can be independent of all other media. To discuss the idea, India International centre is going to host ‘Drawing about Drawing’, an exhibition by Rohini Sen.
‘Drawing about Drawing’ as the title suggests, is a tribute to the process of drawing and its partnership with the artist.
She says that drawings are an attempt to represent what drawing might mean to the artist as well as introspect about how drawing is taught and learned today. “When the need to draw something is juxtaposed with the fear of not being able to perfectly recreate on paper the idea that lingers in the mind, one can trace back this deep seated feeling of fear to the way art classes are conducted in schools and colleges today,” she says.
Some drawings in this collection wonder about how colonial pedagogical practices continue to rule over art teaching in India today – whether it is the way art is assessed in art schools or kindergarteners in schools who for decades together have been learning that the sun shines with a smiley face behind V-shaped mountains overlooking a bright cobalt blue river.
This show is an experiment to bring to the forefront several nuggets of the role that drawing potentially could play or is already playing in our lives. A series of four drawings in this collection deal with the response to a natural calamity.
Drawing for Resilience: Nepal 2015, were made shortly after the Nepal earthquake when a close family member happened to be visiting Nepal at the time and experienced the earthquake from very close quarters.
The four drawings try to lay out a narrative of hope and prayer after a phase of despair and destruction.
These drawings emblematize the idea that the act of drawing is indeed a cognitive action and like grammar in language, drawing too is an equal way of responding.
Her relationship with drawing, as a student and then as a professional artist-teacher began as a troublesome relationship of fear, hesitation and resistance and magically transformed in to one of curiosity, love and longing.
Her aesthetic affinities and drawing tendencies are somewhat rooted in the Madhubani tradition – this folk art style became an inseparable part of my artistic identity during art classes at The Rishi Valley School where she studied.
When: December 5 to 11
Where: Art Gallery, IIC Annexe, Lodhi Estate
Timings: 11 am to 7 pm