Explore rural Maharashtra through this artist's vision at this Bandra exhibition

Artist Kumar Misal’s solo show gives the farmer and sickle in Kolhapur’s heartland their due

Upon entering the Art and Charlie gallery, the visitor leaves behind the by-lanes of Bandra West, finding themselves enveloped in an artist’s vision of rural Maharashtra. Lush sugarcane fields,  banana trees and the lean limbs of farmers define Kumar Misal’s style in paintings and sculptures that keep the agrarian tradition of his community in Kumbhoj, Kolhapur district alive.

In her curatorial note to the solo show titled Rawanth, Archana Hande calls Misal a “sutradhar” of the farmers, because of both his choice of material and the stories he tells. The COVID-19 pandemic years were, to him, a reminder of how farmers and their essential labour are perceived by society. “A certain limiting image comes to mind when we think of farmers. We also think of them only in certain contexts, otherwise they are absent from the public imagination,” he rues.

Rawanth is composed of everyday images from life in Kumbhoj, such as a farmer spraying fertilisers and pesticides, and a godhadi or blanket woven together using a variety of cloth patches. “Having been engaged in farming since I was a child, I wanted to showcase the community’s devotion to their livelihood.”

Misal employs layered metaphors to depict the farming community’s devotion to its livelihood

The exhibition’s title references a process that begins with the mastication of cud by cows, and ends with the creation of fertile, life-giving compost, which in turn is used to grow the food that the cows—and humans—eat. Misal says villagers are particularly adept at turning non-waste into something of utility, unlike the use-and-throw approach of urban life. This is what inspired the process he uses to make his own paper—out of the waste from his family’s field.

Misal’s other artistic choices are purposeful and deliberate. The paper he uses frays at the edges and is torn in places, and his paint is mud red earth. “At first, I wanted to make perfect-looking paper, but  soon realised that my own life has never been sanitised or manicured,” he explains, “And my subject is farmers, who don’t turn away from the adversities and imperfections life throws at them. As for the red soil, that is reminiscent of the way my childhood home looked, and the fact that I was never handed things—I had to earn them or make them myself.”

Misal has created his own visual language, with recurring metaphors. He imagines a snake with a sickle for its head, baring its golden teeth—born of the learning that snakes protect crops from rodents, nurturing them alongside the farmer. He looks at dogs through the same lens: the Indian pariah dog is bestowed with a torch and CCTV camera for a face, evoking the sense of safety and security that his father felt, flanked as he was by pet dogs during his nightly walks through the fields.

Kumar Misal

Misal’s creations demonstrate the ways in which Art and Charlie is experimenting beyond the more traditional white cube format. The sculpture entitled Ba—which is what he calls his father—is part-plough and part-human spine, signifying how farmers are the country’s backbone.

Rawanth is representative of the programming ethos at Art and Charlie, which has consistently platformed young artists who speak to pressing contemporary issues, such as Sri Vamsi Matta’s Come Eat with Me, an interactive theatrical piece on caste and food. 

Gallerist Ayesha Parikh says that the programming responds to the socio-political cusp we find ourselves at. “A conceptual rigour, as well as finding artists who aren’t from the usual urbane, English-speaking backgrounds, has been a key part of our mission,” says Parikh, reflecting on the space’s year-long journey.

WHAT: ‘’ (Rawanth), a solo exhibition by Kumar Misal
WHERE: Art and Charlie, 71A Pali Village, Bandra West
WHEN: Till Nov 18, 11 AM-8 PM
CALL: 9913568686 

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