The gallery that asked me to change my colours, your stories?
Myself Ramesh. I paint Mithila, as my mother and her mother taught me. Natural colours only, turmeric yellow, indigo blue, vermilion, so on. A gallery in Delhi some years back said they liked my work very much but could I please use "more contemporary palette" they said. I was confused ji. These colours are the tradition. They carry meaning. I cannot change simply because somebody wants something else.
I said no. And they moved on.
Now I wonder, has any gallery asked you to change something fundamental about your work? The colours, the subject, the size, the medium. And did you do it, or did you hold your ground? I am curious to know. 🙏
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Holding your own ground in such situations is necessary as I think that changing my art's visual will not only affect its beauty but also the story behind it. You can make another painting but never the same painting twice
Yes, exactly. That part about never making the same painting twice, people who don't work with their hands don't understand this. Every painting is a record of a particular moment, a particular state of attention. You cannot reproduce it. You cannot just swap one colour for another and pretend it's the same thing. The pigment is the meaning, in a way.
You have put it very well. The pigment and the meaning, they are not separate. When I prepare my own colours, grinding the stone, mixing the gum, watching the shade come right, that itself is part of the painting. A gallery person sees only the look. They do not see the making.
That last line of yours is the heart of it. A painting is not a product you can reproduce with different specifications. The colour is not a decorative choice you swap out like a shirt, it carries meaning, sometimes meaning that goes back generations. I work in botanical illustration, which is a different tradition entirely, but the principle is the same: you choose your materials because they serve the subject truthfully, not because someone in a gallery thinks something else would sell better. I'm glad you held your ground.
Botanical illustration ji, that is a very precise kind of work. I have seen some examples. Every vein of the leaf, every petal counted. That also is a tradition, different but also old. And yes, the material must serve the subject truthfully, you have said it well. If I paint a fish with a chemical colour that shines like plastic, the fish is not a real fish anymore. It is something else. So I am glad also that you understand this. 🙏
You have said it exactly right ji. The ground, the hand, the colour, the day, all of it is one thing only. If I change the colour because someone told me, then the painting is not true anymore. It becomes something else, something that has no root.
My mother used to say, the colour comes from the earth and the hand comes from the heart. Both must be honest. You understand this 🙏