First published on 23rd August 2024
A recent showing of Gulammohammed Sheikh’s handprints at Gallery Sumukha, Bengaluru, offered a smorgasbord of experiences, beautifully combining content and technicality, and providing an invaluable insight into the artist’s mindscape and process. Proficiently curated by Pushpamala N., one of the country’s leading contemporary artists, the exhibition was the first of a two-part retrospective, with the second part, dedicated to the master’s forays into digital art, beginning in mid-August 2024.
At first impression, one only focused on and marvelled at Sheikh’s adventures with the technically demanding medium of printmaking. But with a deeper look, one realized the extent to which Sheikh’s printmaking is entwined with the imagery and idioms of his main practice of painting. In quite a few instances, it was evident that his prints are iterations of previously painted works and forms, which have found new manifestations in their growth from one medium to another.
Even though the show was about contextualizing Sheikh’s printmaking practice within his larger oeuvre, it had several other strands as well. One such thread was the history and landmark moments of printmaking in India. The curation also brought to the fore Sheikh’s association with literary movements in Gujarat, through his contributions to regional magazines, both as an artist and a poet. A third important aspect was Sheikh’s continuous engagement with political developments in the country, particularly in Gujarat.
A timeline traced the many phases of Sheikh’s training in the arts and progression into printmaking. Sheikh was introduced to the medium in 1956 while studying at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda. At their Graphics Department, he explored woodcuts, linocuts and lithographs to create monochromatic and multi-colour prints. One of the works on display was an early print from Sheikh’s student days, depicting a still life with objects and fruits rendered in modernist style. In works from a little later during this phase, it was easy to trace the influences of senior artists like N.S. Bendre and M.F. Husain in the stylization of human figures.
However, Sheikh soon evolved his own distinctive style. A series of horses, that were initially part of his paintings, made their way to lithographs, where the beasts morph into tonga horses. They look authentic, local and individualistic, and appear almost like an autobiographical statement, mirroring Sheikh’s own transition from small-town Surendranagar to Baroda. These horse lithographs also extend the feeling imbued in Sheikh’s quick charcoal drawings. For instance, the print “Tonga against the Cityscape” presents a blackened backdrop with urban structures suggested in dark strokes, amidst which there stands a lone melancholic horse.
The next big shift in Sheikh’s practice appears to have been in 1970, when he was exposed to etching during a month-long workshop by noted American printmaker, Paul Lingren, organized by the Smithsonian Institute. This was a landmark event in which 100 artists from across the country came together to explore pathbreaking possibilities with the medium. The workshop left such a huge impact on Sheikh, he got an etching press made, and embarked on a journey that paved way for his deep engagement with printmaking. This offered him the freedom and convenience to do prints whenever possible.
The new medium also seemed perfect for Sheikh’s expanded mindscape. Several years before the workshop, he had visited England for higher studies. While returning, he chose an unusual path and hitchhiked back to India via Italy, Greece and Turkey. These experiences enlarged Sheikh’s worldview, and the workshop merely added to this exposure. Sheikh’s idioms gradually changed. He nurtured the language of collage, where different kinds of images, realistic and imaginary, and multiple worlds coalesced. He started using visual quotations from various cultures, drawing from Mughal miniatures, Italian frescoes, Arabic culture, and folklore from distant lands. He weaved a visual parallel to the magic realism found in the literary works of his beloved author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In some of the etchings of this period, he drew homes where the outer views of the house got mixed up with inner views. In works that responded to the mindless violence of the 1970s’ Baroda riots, he referenced the Hamza Nama (where a lady is pulled by the hair) and the mythical legend of Ashwathama roaming around with his severed head in his hands. The print “Ek achambha dekha re bhai, Thada sinh charaave gai” (Lo, I saw a wonder, The lion is tending to the cows) is clearly a reference to Kabir’s ulatbanshi form of poetry. Here the world is upside down, with the image of a lion in a cow’s belly being a tongue-in-cheek reference to present-day politics. This syncretic language has remained a constant in Sheikh’s paintings and prints.
Through all these phases, the tree has been a recurrent leitmotif in Sheikh’s prints, finding new evocations with each work. In etchings like “Tree by the Wall”, it is a marker of the landscape; elsewhere, it becomes a tree of life; yet in others, it appears as a bio-morphic being, swaying to the rhythm of surrounding forms. Occasionally, the tree is home to a swarm of birds, some of them flying out in tandem. In other works, it becomes integrated with the map of a city, where the roads and bylanes come to resemble spreading roots. This preoccupation with the tree motif can probably be traced to Sheikh’s fascination with the myth of the waq waq, the Speaking Tree Alexander the Great encountered on his way to India, that could speak in many tongues.
The tree is also possibly the most significant marker of the outdoors that Sheikh seems to enjoy. He has always been fond of walking, believing that the feet can teach one to think. Sheikh’s penchant for watching the world through walking relates to the labyrinths of cities that often make their way to his prints. In the work “Apni Apni Aag” (another reference to Kabir), these paths take on the role of connectors between people and the various dwellings they live in. The buildings overlap with each other, with some parts burning, while two characters surrounded by many smaller figures, sit calmly, deliberating. These works become part of Sheikh’s journey in mapping territories beyond the ocular and enter other realms.
Exploring Sheikh’s other talents, the show had a section displaying magazines and books, each of which came with their own interesting history. In 1962, Sheikh’s mentor and Gujarati avant-garde writer, Suresh Joshi, invited him to look after the visual art section of Kshitij (Horizon) magazine. Sheikh wanted to include lots of visuals on the cover and the inner pages, but getting metal blocks prepared was very expensive. So, he figured out a way of mounting linocutpiecesonwooden blocks and got them printed in a letterpress machine. Using this technique, he had the likes of K.G. Subramanyan, Himmat Shah, Jyoti Bhatt, Vivan Sundaram and Bhupen Khakhar contribute with their prints. Loose prints of these works were also inserted in the magazine so that people could frame and display them separately. From 1969 to 1973, Sheikh and Khakhar edited and published an English magazine called Vrushchik (Scorpio), which also carried linocuts and lithographs. One of its issues even featured a dialogue between Jagmohan Chopra, Jyoti Bhatt and Sheikh about printmaking.
Even as these displays and Sheikh’s books of poetry offer an insight into his mind, it is the prints that ultimately stand testimony to the artist’s technical skills and command over physical practices. The limitations offered by printmaking mediums, in terms of the number of colours that can be used or the kind of details that can be rendered, has pushed Sheikh to work with varied line qualities and tonal gradations. He has achieved this by using soft ground or aquatints. In some etchings, he incorporates flat colours rolled onto the surface, providing an overall tint for the line drawings.
With each medium he takes on, Sheikh explores and exploits its possibilities to the fullest, but without ever foregrounding the technique behind it. It is always the imagery that garners most attention, while technique plays a supporting role. As one goes through these prints, it opens up a rich array of images, nudging the viewer to engage in journeys rooted in the present, but entwined in innumerable ways with other places and temporalities.
Gulammohammed Sheikh: Graphic Prints was on at Gallery Sumukha, Bengaluru, from June 29 to July 27, 2024.
Ravikumar Kashi is a Bengaluru-based multidisciplinary artist, writer and educator.