A new collection of paintings by a city-based artist will explore the brilliant colour palette of birds spotted in the metropolis, and initiate dialogue on ecology and climate change
A painting of the Indian Golden Oreole; (right) print of an Agaric mushroom with a layout of its anatomy. Pics courtesy/Abhishek Khan
Our gardens are like museums. You just need a fresh outlook to spot the city’s natural wonders,” lettering artist and writer Abhishek Khan tells us when we ask him about his new project, a collection of paintings documenting the birds of Mumbai over a call. Hosting botanical tours around the city through his storytelling project, Mumbai Vann, that focuses on stories and informative narratives about botany and putting down his ecological observations on paper through paintings, hand-lettering and observer cards, Khan’s motive to revive our relationship with ecology is rooted in a deep fascination and reverence for the natural world.
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A shade card depicting the colour palette of a Poison Dart Frog
“I feel there are few published books about birds in India, and the ones we have don’t provide enough information about these creatures. There needs to be a lot more diversity in how we interpret and understand birds outside of exclusive anecdotes. Through these paintings, I wanted to highlight birds through their colours and help people interpret and appreciate the ordinary birds in our city,” Khan shares. With a deep interest in ecology, Khan channelises his skills and knowledge of branding and storytelling into artistic endeavours such as paintings and hand-lettered information cards that can serve as small guides for trees, birds, flowers and other natural elements through Mumbai Vann activities and his website.
Abhishek Khan
When prompted to document this city’s birds through their colour palettes, he discovered interesting connections. “While working on this project I realised how the brilliant hues of the birds are the original shade cards for the colours we see around us. Take the yellow-black colour palette of the Indian Golden Oriole which is a combination you see in Bombay’s kaali-peelis or the hoard of colours in a Coppersmith Barbet, which is more common to the city — the variety is simply astonishing. Even with birds like the Greater Flamingo or the White-throated Kingfisher, the colours tell us a lot about the species. These birds are easy to identify with a pair of binoculars and a guidebook,” the Goregaon resident reveals.
With these paintings Khan wants to divert attention to the ordinary, reintegrate the natural world in our lives and push for visible change in our response to the climate crisis. “I will be taking forward these colour paintings for all life forms — for anything and everything that is significant for our biodiversity. Our actions have punctured an irreparable hole in the ecological fabric. It is high time we realise that we are a part of the ecosystem, not engineers of it and realign our actions urgently,” he concludes.
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