Bengaluru-based artist Jyoti C Singh Deo talks about her upcoming solo artwork exhibition ‘Coal’i’fied’
Bengaluru-based artist Jyoti C Singh Deo talks about her upcoming solo artwork exhibition ‘Coal’i’fied’
Often a lifestyle is etched so deep in our thoughts’s eye that we fail to see its absence. For artist Jyoti C Singh Deo who was born and introduced up in Jamshedpur, coal mines had been all the time part of the panorama.
“I’d journey an hour to highschool every day and we’d see piles of coal, mountains of black tar and slag; it was an industrial city and a fantastic one. In locations like Jharkhand, the panorama is totally different too — it’s all black and the roads are brown. The total space is dotted with opencast mines (the place minerals are sourced from open-air pits) or quarries and it’s fairly widespread to see villagers on cycles, ferrying huge sacks of coal,“ says Jyoti.
Artist Jyoti C Singh Deo
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Life took her locations and as soon as when she was passing a coal mine in Lekhapani, Assam, she recollected the landscapes of her childhood. “Everything about life out there was different, from everyday vocabulary to the way people dressed to keep their clothes from getting grimy, courtesy the ever-present coal dust. Since I grew up there, I thought it was common knowledge, but many people don’t know about life here.”
She recounts how troublesome it was to supply coal in Bengaluru the place she is now primarily based. “I wanted coal pieces for an installation and it was so difficult to find. All I got was charcoal (derived from wood) and eventually I took to searching for coal online. The situation was both difficult and hilarious because what was so common in one place, was scarce elsewhere.”
Jyoti who’s a self-taught artist provides that she started sketching with charcoal and pencil in childhood. “It came easily to me and I got the hang of charcoal early on. I eventually discovered various media and have worked with oils, acrylics, ink and watercolours.”
A chunk by artist Jyoti C Singh Deo
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
A journalist by career, Jyoti realised she too may very well be a full-time artist while interviewing one other artist and he or she took it up as her full-time ardour in 2003. “I was constantly painting; even as a working woman, I would spend at least 20 minutes everyday, painting with oils.”
Since then, there was no wanting again for Jyoti. Besides collaborating in quite a few group exhibits, she had her first solo present in 2008 on the Lalit Kala Akademi in Bhubaneswar, which was adopted by her second at Rangoli Metro Art Gallery in Bengaluru, a few years later.
Jyoti says that she started working, the coal-centred theme simply got here up and started to play itself throughout her work. Yet she felt one thing was missing. “What I felt just wasn’t coming across; my work wasn’t doing justice to what I wanted to express.”
A chunk by artist Jyoti C Singh Deo
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
When a current surgical procedure restricted her shoulder span, Jyoti took to pen renderings and charcoal once more. “I was used to working on bigger canvases but since I couldn’t lift my arm too much, I had to be content with working on a smaller scale. I started with a slag piece and then turned to coal and soon the whole idea was there, taking shape.”
Talking about Coal’I’fied,’ she says, “It is not an exhibition of just one style or medium. It is a story that I want to tell — of what life is like out there in coal-mining towns and I have tried to capture that in my work. I just want to showcase that coal is a medium that is close to my heart and offers a glimpse of life around coal.”
“The theme of my work is coal — the landscapes, the people, vehicles used in the fields and more.”
A chunk by artist Jyoti C Singh Deo
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
More than 55 canvases of various sizes utilizing combined media resembling acrylics, charcoal on paper, ink on paper, ink on canvas and dry pastels in addition to 5 installations, might be on show at Coal’I’fied. “I can use any medium as long as I’m portraying the theme of coal.,” she says, including that she expresses herself greatest with coal.
‘Coal’I’fied’ by Jyoti C Singh Deo might be on show at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath from June 17 to twenty.
Source: www.thehindu.com
