AFRICAN VIGNETTES

NAGUESH  RAO  SARDESSAI

Chief Minister Shri. Manohar Parrikar inaugurated ‘African Vignettes’, a painting exhibition, by Gayatri Siddhaye at the Kala Academy, Goa, on May 3rd.

Travelogues record the experiences of an author or a filmmaker touring a place for the pleasure of travel. The words are infused with graphical potential. Microscopic details pop up to aid your imagination and the readers are transported to an unexplored terrain.

Artists’ ease your journey by offering you a platter of images to juxtapose and jumble. They invite you into their world.

Gayatri Siddhaye’s tour to a place, as exotic as Africa, left her with an intense urge to present a pictorial ‘Travelogue’. Africa mesmerized her to the point where she felt overwhelmed by the exciting hues, eye-catching permutations and combinations of colours, the sinewy dance, supple bodies, springy gait of African people, nature and the warm hospitality.

The tour left an indelible mark on her creative being and the images began to poke her into action. Restless Gayatri churned out compositions that had the African flavor yet maintained Indian ethos. Gayatri’s journey in the field of art, though not very long, has some important milestones. She has participated in various group shows and had a very successful two-women show at a private gallery.

Besides this, Gayatri participated in a workshop conducted by ‘Fulbright Scholar’ Kathryn Myers and the works produced here were subsequently shown in Goa and Chennai.

Gayatri, through these paintings, explores the life in Africa. The impression has mutated into sturdy forms that flow through the brush as casually as leaves sprouts out of a stem. ‘African Vignettes’ touches the life of the people there. ‘At Leisure’, ‘Dance of Joy’, ‘Serenading’ are few of the works that brings forth the joie de vivre of Africans associated with African population.

Gestures, the mode of non-verbal communication with visible bodily actions, remained the raw and primary mode of communication of human beings long before language evolved. Gayatri transplants that in her highly stylized images with tabular structure. Large pouted lips that stick out as appendage, unique headgear, earthy hued skin, domesticated animals strategically arranged and such uniquely African elements accentuate the identity of her influence.

Gayatri’s African sojourn has culminated into paintings that present a series of short impressionistic scenes displaying her ability to fuse the two, i.e. Indian cultural influence and fleeting African impression, and spawning a distinctive identity.

The show was on view till May 6, 2013.