Artist Jayasri Burman
Artist Jayasri Burman

The wonder of women and water

Artist Jayasri Burman talks about the female form and her many inspirations
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Gliding through the admiring buzz of visitors, collectors and critics like an allegory of tides, a white seashell neckpiece almost covering the front of her sea-green tunic, Jayasri Burman is happy to have created a union of primeval waters and the feminine principle.

The Whisper of Water, The Song of Stars that opened to the buzz of cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, the camaraderie of cognoscenti and wide-eyed art parvenus is a tour de force of dissimilarity in multiplicity.

The feminine form, ‘Shakti’ is the leitmotif of the show. Why are no men in her larger-than-life paintings? “That’s not true,” she protests. “Yes, I do paint only the female form, but isn’t the male a part of the female too? Had Bramha, Vishnu, Maheshwar not been there, would there be Shakti? I come from West Bengal, where the festivals are largely centred on women—Durga, Kali, Lakshmi—and that’s what appears on my canvas,” says the 64-year-old artist. It’s a dreamscape that she paints—filled with minute details. This time most of the detailing is with cowries and shells, beside the mermaids drawn from mythology, their tails twisted like interrogations of metaphors.

Her favourite artwork is Boticelli’s Birth of Venus, the goddess of love emerging from the ocean. As a child, Burman would spend holidays with her family in the coastal cities of Digha, Puri, etc. The eight-year-old would collect seashells and bring the treasure back home, where it would be washed and fondly stored. “I would keep going back to this treasure trove. To me they were symbolic of life in the depth of the ocean. It is from here that I drew my imagery of water and the cowries. It is the child in me that is imagining the life under the water,” she says.

While the colour scheme in the works on show is robust, the figures are flat. “I want to paint as I see the world,” says the soft spoken artist. Flat, they may be, but they are evocative, nonetheless. While the central figure maybe similar in all the artworks, there are minute differences in each expression, if you look closely. The women stare out of canvases and paper, eyes serene and wide open, with enigmatic smiles playing at the corner of their lips—each face is similar, but the differences are minute and subtle. Curly, long jet-black hair frames the faces.

“My female form is inspired by my eldest cousin. Just like her the woman in my works have curly, long hair. It’s also partly an ode to both my mother and Ma Durga. In fact, all three merge in my paintings. They are the ones I’m constantly drawing, they are my idea of womanhood,” she says.

She links long hair with the aura of a woman. “Think of any woman in mythology and you will see they have lustrous hair—Shakuntala, Draupadi, Sita… all had beautiful hair,” says the Delhi-based artist. Another reason for focusing on women is because they are an inherent part of the cosmos. “When Draupadi dies, her body is left on the earth, she does not reach heaven. When Parvati dies, her body is cut into pieces and strewn across the earth, and these become the shaktipeeths.

Likewise, Sita is enveloped by the earth. All these powerful women go back to the earth—where they came from. And this is the earth that gives birth to beauty—the flora around us. Through my artworks, I want to speak of this continuous and thriving bond,” she points to the detailed works which have flowers and trees in the background.

While her trademark style is instantly recognisable, Burman insists that her art cannot be boxed into a particular category. “I keep changing. My creativity is like water bubbling in a pot. You never know what might come forth out of it, or even what is exactly happening.” The moving brush paints; and having painted, moves on in Jayasri’s imagination.

“My creativity is like water bubbling in a pot. You never know what might come forth out of it, or even what is exactly happening.”

jayasri burman

When & Where

The Whisper of Water, The Song of Stars; Art Alive Gallery, Delhi; Till February 28

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The New Indian Express
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