Walk into Gulammohammed Sheikh’s recent exhibition and a painting in blue dominating one wall beckons you. Kaarawaan resembles Noah’s Ark. It has portraits of a medley of artists—Leonardo da Vinci, Frida Kahlo, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Rabindranath Tagore, MF Husain, Vincent van Gogh, FN Souza, Bhupen Khakhar and more. It looks as if the boat is carrying them across the sea of time.
Inspired by 18th-century Pahadi painter Nainsukh’s Boat Adrift a River, it also carries guardian saints. In a way, the ark represents our syncretic culture and heralds hope in time of turmoil, represented through the turbulent waters. Completed between 2019 and 2023, the 80 x 257-inch canvas has the “past converge with the present”, says the 87-year-old artist, who often works on large paintings along with a team of assistants, all of who are duly credited on each work.
The exhibition—Kaarawaan and Other Works—by the Vadehra Art Gallery, takes its name from this titular work. Sheikh explains, “It is about packing up experiences of a lifetime and sailing off to an unknown destination. It covers people from real life and from paintings. The places are mostly imaginary with reference to sights I may have visited in real life or in dreams. It boasts artists that have shaped my vision over the years.
The viewer is invited to participate and join the ‘kaarawaan’.” The Vadodara-based artist is also a known name in the literary world. Do painting and writing impact each other? “Writing and painting may meet but are also independent mediums: you don’t always paint what you write and you don’t always write what you paint. At the same time, they also overlap. Either way, you traverse into wondrous worlds,” he says.
The Indian mystic poet and saint Kabir, and the Father of the Nation—Mahatma Gandhi—have been lasting influences. “Both fought for a just society and sought equality throughout their lives. We are blessed to have icons of such stature in our lives, one could keep learning from. In fact, the poetry of Kabir, Meera, Surdas and Khusrow is part of our collective heritage which has inspired generations. I like to re-visit their words to see if I can find a visual equivalence in my paintings,” says the artist who painted verses of Kabir in an exhibition in the early 1990s.
In the recent show too, there is a large canvas—Francis and Kabir—with St. Francis and Kabir on either side of a circular map of the world with a small figure of Gandhi in the centre. It is surrounded by images of violence and peace. For instance, there is a small but striking image of the Syrian toddler who drowned attempting to reach Greece and was found lying face-down on a beach. The work on this 78.5 x 123.5-inch painting started in 2010 and took over a decade. The map is an improvised version of the one created by Gervase of Ebstorf, Germany, in the 13th century.
Talking about his early years, when he studied art at Baroda and London, Sheikh says, “Baroda has been the place from where I saw the world and the world of art. I studied here, painted here and taught here. It made me what I am today. The three years in London (1963-66) gave me an opportunity to discover world art through its museums, art galleries and private collections.
I discovered great Indian paintings in the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum which gave me enough to last a lifetime. It also provided opportunities to travel especially in Europe through hitch-hiking to see the great Italian paintings in Florence, Siena in Italy and in other European towns. What I saw filled my eyes, my mind, and my entire being.” In his works and psyche, the historical and mythological share space. “Can one be oblivious of what goes around you? I weave my own narratives combining different genres to find language of the multiple,” he says.