National Printmaking Camp organized by Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi at Indira Kala Sangeet Vishwavidyalaya, Khairagarh (Chhattisgarh) was my first National Printmaking camp that was attended by Mr. Jaikrishna Agarwal, Mr. Anandmoy Banerji, Mr. V.Nagdas, Mrs. Asma Menon, Mr. Mahesh Prajapati, Mr. Aftab Ahmed, Mr. Salil Sahani, Mr. Bijoy Velekkatte, Miss Dimple Bhupatrai Shah & Mr. Sudhakar Chippa. Being the youngest participant of the camp, it was a wonderful experience. Working with senior artists from different parts of the country and students of Indira Kala Sangeet Vishwavidyalaya, was as if I was in the middle of two generation. I was amazed with the fact that being in the remote part of central India the graphic department was well equipped with some good facilities for printmaking mediums like lithography, silkscreen and etching. I think it was helpful for both artist and the students, especially for students since they could see some different techniques from artists who were specialized in photo etching and other mediums.
Apart from technical skills I believe it also gave students an opportunity to understand works of senior artists. During the camp participants made presentations of their journey in the art field and showed their works, I believe that would have also helped students (upcoming artist) to look art in a broader perspective. The works of students were very impressive, there command over skill & mediums was something that I noticed was good. The most interesting part of the camp was enthusiasm and curiosity among the students to learn and understand techniques which created a live environment for interactions and sharing of ideas between artist and students and the camp was filled with lot of positive energy. In the middle of this somewhere in my heart I was wondering that most of the art schools in India give good training in developing skill and draftsmanship to the students, but they lack to give theoretical knowledge that develops language of expression.
On personal level this camp gave me an opportunity to interact with artist on various issues relating to art and also about their works. It was very interesting to have a dialogue with senior artists like Mr. Jai Krishna Agarwal one of the senior most artists in the camp and discuss various issue of art. While discussing on performance art he gave a good example about a theater person Richard Schechner who traveled India with his new concept of theater to involve general audience as part of the play not dividing the line of stage and audience space but then he discovered in one of the Ram Lilia festival that the whole city was involved in this play, then he wrote a book titled-From The Ramlila To The Avant-garde (1983). One more important discussion that was interesting was with an artist who came from Jammu Kashmir, who used Arabic scripts in his works.
He used Arabic script to express his thoughts with minimal touch of calligraphy in his work. One more important artist who did engraving was Mr. Salil Sahani, who almost sculpted zinc plate. Also it was interesting to see how Mrs. Asma Menon while working on plate took full liberty of experimenting with Zinc plate. A full force of act came from Mr. Anandmoy Banerji who acted as energy booster for students while working on various mediums like Etching, Silkscreen and Lithography, showing possibilities to students on respective mediums. The best part of the camp was sharing my art work with artists, discuss various aspects of my work and get their feedback. I think for students my presentation would have been helpful since I not only shared my printmaking works but also showed them my performances, installations and I feel that would have given them an insight to know possibility of other language of expression and experimenting with different mediums. I am thankful to Lalit Kala Academy for recognizing me and providing me this opportunity.
In my opinion more such opportunities should be provided to artist from younger generation, it will be an advantage to expand their thought process and help them continue their art practice, since these kinds of camps gives moral support to an artist for being a part of art community at large.
Photographs by: Prof. Nagdas Velayudhan
