Folk art: Pocket-friendly local culture on canvas for your drawing room

Deeply rooted in Indian tradition and heritage, folk art is fast catching the fancy of both, the country's millennials and foreign expats

If you are looking for something trendy in drawing room aesthetics, you needn't go for the celebrated Indian names or the exotic. Folk art is slowly but surely emerging as the new 'in-thing' with its refreshing sense of connectedness to nature and local culture. And it isn't a burden on the wallet either.

Here is an art form that effectively depicts stories about ancient Indian tribes and communities on canvas and reinforces cultural identity and shared community values. The themes could vary from mythology to magic, celebration of mother earth to traditions of the yore to illustrations of daily mundane human activities such as fishing, farming, hunting, weddings and festivals and even progressive themes of social reform such as abolition of zamindari system, women empowerment and such like - all of this using natural colours and earthy materials. The custodians of folk art are generally local people who literally inherit the craft, the tales, the techniques from their ancestors -- a wisdom that is passed on from one generation to another.

Several galleries endorse this art form today. Gond art in particular has been gaining immense popularity both domestically and internationally, says Sharan Seth, founder Conferro auction house. Seth, who does a lot of folk and tribal art, says there is a demand for Madhubani, Patachitra, Gond art and Phad painting.

Folk versus tribal
 
Is tribal art the same as folk art? While folk art includes traditional art and tribal art, there is a fine line of demarcation between the two, says Anubhav Nath, Gallery Director of Ojas Art. He says tribal art is technically the kind that comes from any of the approximately 600 recognised tribes in India. Traditional art, on the other hand, is heritage craft that is not created by tribals. Says Nath, “This may be a geopolitically loaded statement but a Gond is recognised as a tribe, but not Madhubani.”

What makes folk art so coveted? For starters, you can pick up a piece for as little as Rs 5,000 and go up to Rs 50,000-70,000 for some pretty decent work. Then there are renowned artists such as Jangarh Singh Shyam (the Gond master) who is even selling at $20,000-30,000. By and large, however, folk art is in the realm of affordable and relatable art. The other reason folk art is catching on is that during the past five years, the ecosystem to promote it has evolved holistically.

Says Nath, “For any visual art category to be sustainable, one basically needs eight elements to work in tandem. These include the artists, galleries, dealers, collectors, auction houses, museums/institutions, curators and writers. For instance, the Indian contemporary art space went through this phase in the early 2000s and soon after people saw prices go up ten fold. The reason was there was an entire market that had built around it."

Nath emphasises that folk art, the default Indian aesthetic, is so relatable, that it is difficult to not like it, and many mainstream contemporary artists such as J Swaminathan draw inspiration from it. Because of its growth potential, folk art is here to stay, he adds.