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“Traversing historical and mythical spaces of paintings long admired
and bringing these into my experiential arena has been an old habit.
The routes through these trajectories open the terrain of discovery:
of maps, charts, vignaptipatras
and a host of paintings that invite negotiations, mediations and
appropriations. Discovering a picture postcard of the Ebstorf
Mappamundi (a map of the world, now lost, made in 13th
century Europe) a couple of years ago triggered a desire to make
painted maps. Learning techniques of digital collaging at an
interactive workshop organized by Art underground (a digital art
gallery in Baroda) facilitated the process of inventing new maps by
implanting sites of my choice into the circuits laid out in the
Ebstorf Mappamundi. In
order to overcome the limitations of cloning that digital technology
imposes, I decided to paint over every inkjet print to play a jugalbandi of
the hand, mind and machine”.
Gulammohammed Sheikh
Gulammohammed Sheikh (b.1937), has been painting for over four decades
and taught art history and painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M. S.
University of Baroda. He writes poetry and prose in Gujarati and has
published essays on art in English. He has also lectured on Indian art
in India and abroad. His paintings and prints have been shown in India
and abroad including a solo at Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris in 1985.
He has worked in various media, most of the time in oils and gouache
on canvas, wood and paper besides etching and ceramics. He has been
experimenting with digital collage since last three years.
Catalogue essay by Kumkum
Sangari |
