The fine print of life, as you see it

Nonika Singh

Her frail and gentle looks almost delude you. However, Anupam Sud, one of India’s finest printmakers, is a woman of immense courage — both in conviction and determination. Yet she wouldn’t go to town either about her achievements or her rather laborious creative process.

Back in time, when she decided to be an artist, she thinks it was sheer providence that propelled her on to the artistic path. The choice to be a printmaker too, she feels, was more subconscious than deliberate. She recalls, “When I saw other printmakers, my initial kneejerk reaction was never am I going to be a printmaker. It involved so much labour and their clothes were constantly smeared with dirt and oil. But I was soon drawn in. It was like quicksand in which I got trapped and enraptured.”

The possibilities in the realm of printmaking are immeasurable, almost infinite and she found a mentor in her teacher Jagmohan Chopra, a renowned printmaker whose dedication, she feels, is unparalleled. “Where will you find a person who would convert his house into a studio?” Imbibing the painstaking technique of printmaking first at the College of Art, New Delhi and later at Slade School of Fine Art, London, she wonders aloud as to how craft can be disassociated from art.

Her dexterous mastery over her medium stands out in fine detailing and her treatment of chiaroscuro — the play of light and shadow — is truly exemplary. Then the evocative expressions hold a mirror to gender relations, to contrasts and ambiguities that life offers. “When you are a part of society, you can only draw inspiration from the world around you.” However, she doesn’t see herself as a critic, only as an observer, and certainly not as a judge of human character. Her works are open to multiple interpretations for she allows viewers’ both the freedom and the space to draw their own conclusions.

Man-woman relationships are often the genesis of her creativity. On women being her constant muse, she says, “When men paint women, they see her as an object of beauty and desire. But when I do the same, it’s a 360 degree experience of inhabiting a female body and knowing exactly what and how she feels.” However, in her world, men too are equally important. “Negating them would be nullifying nature itself.” Her male images have drawn much attention, praise and curiosity.

If the inspiration for drawing virile male forms came from her father’s muscular and well-toned physique, her mind was constantly informed by her mother’s telling and retelling of mythological fables. Indeed, mythology often permeates her creations. One of her notable works is on Draupadi and she finds goddess Shakti in ordinary women.

Like the many-layered mythology, her works are more allegorical than direct. Two of her series, Game and Dialogue, have won her much critical acclaim. Critics might view her works as those of a feminist, but she certainly doesn’t see herself as a radical or member of the bra-burning brigade. Be it Gandhari’s real reasons for going blindfolded (revenge and not pativrata) or her own grandfather seeking advice from her grandmother, feminism for her isn’t really an invention of the modern world. 

As the world of art is in a flux, as digital technology is all set to alter its dynamics, she says emphatically: “Reproduction is not art.” Yet for someone who taught at the College of Art in Delhi for decades, she is not averse to change either. She is positive that digital works will soon find the same place in annals of art.

Masterpieces, she says, are not created but happen perchance — with divine intervention, years of diligent practice and imagination. Add to it perceptive observation and you have an answer to what makes her works part of prestigious museums and biennales. 

“Dedication is expensive. It will cost you your life,” wrote Irving Stone. And Anupam Sud has dedicated hers to art willingly and enthusiastically, in the process opening many windows to both life and art.