India Art Fair: Layers of Love
In the realm of contemporary art, where colours often take a backseat, Tunty Chauhan, curator and director of Threshold Art Gallery, highlights a standout artist. Long before computers, oleography thrived— hand drawings with oil colours graced calendars, posters and advertisements, becoming commonplace in homes, shops and theatres. “Amidst a modern palette of muted tones,” Chauhan points out, “V Ramesh is an artist, who not only preserves a rich colour spectrum but also manipulates it with his distinctive flair.”
Ramesh’s upcoming exhibition ‘Love Stories’, set to be showcased at the India Art Fair 2024, draws inspiration from old oleographs, paying homage to the unknown artists who made art accessible to all.
The Visakhapatnam-based artist says that his fascination with the oleographs led him to his recent collection. “Four decades back, I had written my dissertation on popular Bazaar Paintings, but it was only during the pandemic that I started collecting these prints. So, this collection is a return to that journey,” he says.
A return to oleographs
In this homage to oleographs—the prints look as if they have an oil painting finish to them—Ramesh’s work echoes the work initiated in the 19th century by Raja Ravi Varma, who influenced “an entire generation of artists” in adopting this art form.
In March 2020, when the country experienced a lockdown, many took to social media to start their niche businesses. As a result, Ramesh found a man from Rajasthan who sold these old oleographs.
“I ended up buying lots of such prints, religious and non-religious, and I noticed that most of these paintings feature couples, whether mythological or ordinary ones,” he says. Inspired by Nozawa Boncho’s Haiku, ‘Love’, which beautifully contemplates the myriad ways love could have been experienced, Ramesh found a perfect theme for his collection, leading to the title ‘Love Stories’. “To me, this Haiku became the thematic anchor for my collection,” he says.
He emphasises the Haiku’s past tense, a subtle choice that imbues the verse with a sense of yearning and nostalgia. It is this very sentiment he aims to evoke in those who visit his exhibition.
Different treatment
In ‘Love Stories’, Ramesh painstakingly recreates old oleographs, applying layers of watercolours and subsequently washing them off. This process allows him to construct diverse layers in his artwork, revealing a subtle faint image in the background.
After completing this step, he then employs light strokes with his brush, at times sketching the subjects of the painting to enhance their movements, and at other times, incorporating floral motifs. Much like the oleograph paintings found on well-worn sarees, displaying signs of fading and creasing from repeated use, Ramesh’s layering technique captures this nuanced effect in his creations.
“I wanted to capture the essence of the old, and the nostalgic. However, simply recreating oleographs was just not enough. It could have been the easiest way, but as an artist, it was important for me to reflect myself in the art. These layers, the building and re-building of the painting, is my reflection on them,” he says.
The artist says that each painting took him about 15 to 20 days to complete. The paintings, he explains, had to be done by a process of osmosis, where one thing [the technique and character of painting] percolates into the other. It was, therefore, essential that each painting be simultaneously worked upon. “There were times when I would wash the layers off and unravel a hidden gem, it was truly a Eureka moment for me,” he says.
‘Love Stories’ will be on at the Threshold Art Gallery, C-221, Block C, Sarvodaya Enclave, from February 1 to February 4