With demand up, artists are now busier than before Covid-19 pandemic

March is usually a month of transition for Indian art. Exhibitions and galleries go into high drive for one last push before summer’s hibernation, while artists gear up for shows and openings overseas. But March was when the world shut its doors this year, India went into lockdown, and the spectre of an earlier recession reared its ugly head. As offices closed, people lost jobs, mass migrations began, it seemed the future for artists was bleak. They couldn’t have known then that most of them would be laughing their way to the bank.

In Mumbai, Atul Dodiya was working on large canvases at his studio when the city shut down. He shifted, instead, to working on watercolours, making one painting a day. “I’ve produced 225 paintings,” he says, “a body of work with continuity for the first time in my career” — the result of enforced isolation. Each features a solitary figure in reference to nature: a twig, trees, clouds, water, pastoral scenes. “I begin with a wriggly line, or a diagonal one, across paper,” he explains, “with no clue about what I will compose.” 

Satish Gupta was in his mountain studio in the Himalayas when Covid hit, and has since worked in his studios in Puducherry and Gurugram. Like Dodiya, he has had to miniaturise his ambitions, since large sculptures require a full team. But time has been fruitfully spent on “organising all my old drawings” — many, many of them. “I’m making small works,” he says, “small sculptures, drawings, paintings…” 

In Udaipur, American artist Waswo X Waswo who works in collaboration with local miniaturist, R Vijay, and photographer, R Soni, wasn’t impacted like his city-based peers because his preferred scale of work has always been small. Waswo has begun a series of paintings over old lithographs, and is considering a new series of Nayika miniatures, subverting them as homo-eroticised versions of the original. In August, he opened a gallery exhibition at Latitude 28 in New Delhi to which guests were invited virtually “but with drinks in their hands”. 

In New Delhi, G R Iranna overcame the grimness of the news by painting experimentally, first, at home, and, now, at his studio: “I’m using ash and clay on canvas, I’m doing scratchings, things I used to do earlier.” His theme? “The tree is my focus,” he explains, “represented as human, a witness to time, space and emotions.”

Octogenarian Manu Parekh has simply to cross the balcony to get from his home to his studio. But in the absence of his assistant, and not wanting the bother of stretching canvases or hoisting large works, has achieved two things: Painting a series on flowers on khadi boards; and maintaining a strict regimen of drawing daily, having accumulated well over 150 works in the process. “It’s important,” he tells me, “to think of the longevity of your work, not your life.”

Also in Delhi, Paresh Maity collated hundreds of his own incomplete works on board and canvas — “mostly abstract, in thick impastos” and “completed them with new light, new forms, new ideas in an innovative manner that is expressive but minimalistic”. At his studio, he’s now begun work on large installations. “The pandemic has provided the opportunity to work without interference,” he says, a sentiment that is echoed by most artists. 

Going, going...

The demand is coming from everywhere — galleries, collectors, newbies; from a growing number of Indian cities and, thanks to the online media, from overseas as well. Artists are sending shipments to USA, UK, Singapore and West Asia. 

True, there is an insistence on discounts as well, pressures artists find somewhat “irritating”. With demand overtaking supply, at least one laughed: “I’ve increased my prices by 20 per cent.” Now, who would have thought that in the middle of a life-altering pandemic? 

Seema Kohli, on a working sabbatical in Goa, has devoted her time in New Delhi to doing large paintings “because there is no pressure of exhibitions, and I’ve had more time to complete works”. Instead of finishing one painting at a time, as was her norm, she’s working on several canvases simultaneously, and is also making works on paper. December will see two exhibitions open online — one from the capital, the other from London.

Shobha Broota spends 3-4 hours daily working on “slightly smaller” canvases. Madhvi Parekh has been making a series of reverse paintings on acrylic, 24 of which will be converted to reverse prints on acrylic by Archer in Ahmedabad. Anju Dodiya hopes her exhibition at Galerie Templon, Brussels, earlier scheduled for February, will open in April 2021. Jayasri Burman has been working on a new series vastly different from her figurative work that she’s keeping under wraps. Jitish Kallat’s small suite of paintings titled Circadian Studies has led to a series of photoworks. He’s working towards solos in Sweden and West Asia as well as two permanent public sculptures, one in India, the other in West Asia. 

With collectors spending more time at home, and spends on luxuries curtailed, art became a natural point of attention. ‘There was always interest in my work,” Dodiya says, “but in the last 6-8 months it has increased manifold, especially for small-scale works.” “I’m having difficulty coping with the demand,” confirms Iranna, “There isn’t a single work left in my studio.”