CHENNAI: A s dusk sets in on the quiet villages of Rajasthan, a performer opens a phad, which is a narrative scroll painting and fixes it to the ground with bamboo sticks. Drawing from folklore, he brings the phad to life by singing the scenes depicted on the painting, which is traditionally done on cloth. The word ‘phad’ literally translates to ‘read’, and the paintings explore deities and their stories.
Kalyan is from the renowned Joshi family that has been into painting Phad art for almost 700 years! “In the olden days, our family would only teach the art to daughters-in-law and not daughters. This was done to keep the art in the family, which is why until recently, there were only 12 phad painters in the world,” he informs.
With this reason in mind, he opened Chitrashala in his village, where he taught over 2,000 children the art of phad painting. “People need to be made aware of their artistic and cultural history, and I am trying to do that today through my paintings and workshops. An art form that was once going to vanish, now was over 100 people practicing it,” Kalyan adds.
The 10th Century art is drawn using paint brushes and natural pigments that are made by hand. The colours are extracted from stones, flowers and herbs. The colours used also have a symbolic value, like red indicates valour. “I have tried to make my work more contemporary with time. Earlier we used to work only with primary colours and now I have tried to change that. I also moved to drawing on more contemporary subjects, which people would want to buy,” he elaborates. The painter has also depicted popular poems like Geet Govind and Madhushala in a phad.
Kalyan has been drawing since he was eight years old and his work has taken him places. He worked on documentary filmmakers and even created animated films about phad in the US. This created awareness and brought the ancient art to light, giving him opportunities to teach this at institutions like NID, IIT and NIFT, among others.
While his father, Lal Joshi was awarded the Padma Shree and Shilpguru, Kalyan, who has always experimented with contemporary style narrative paintings, was given National Merit Award (2006), National President Award (2010), and a scholarship from the British Council to take his work in the field further. He also received `1 lakh along with a Tambapatra certificate in 2010. For details, call 9414115987