Jute Wall Art ~ Bhalu { Design G }

In the year 2001, a veteran artist  Late Mr. Asis Pradhan conceptualized and developed this unique type of Wall Hangings along with a couple of more crafts to help a small group of women from underprivileged society to be economically independent and self reliant. Since then most of the artisans working here are women. The group enables economic independence to women working at home to help them assert their rights because women empowerment is an essential tool to bring the right changes in their socio- economic condition.

 

One of the main agends of the group is also to look for ways of crafting natural resources in a non destructive and sustainable manner. Jute is the primary raw material used to create art pieces. Used in yarn form of varying thicknesses a diverse range of wall hangings are made.

 

 The group is a small body of two Artist, two designers, eighteen artisans and two framers. Apart from this there is regular office staff to take care of the managementa and logistics related activities. There is however no physical retail outlet yet.

 

PROCEDURE

Materials used  are recycled paper compressed boards, Pure cotton cloth, glazed jute yarn.

 

The art work is first conceptualized on paper. Most of these are inspired by Mr. Pradhan's  sculptures and paintings. The board is covered with pure cotton cloth of any chosen color and a sketch or print of the outline of the art work is composed on it. Highly glazed Jute yarn is concentrically placed over the design outline made on the cloth and then gradually the whole form is covered in the same concentric manner. From cutting of the board to framing the art work, the Wall hangings are purely handmade. 

 

Asis Pradhan was born on November 2 , 1938. Since childhood he had an aptitude for the palette and brush. This liking for brush and colours led him to the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Calcutta from where he graduated with a first class in fine arts in 1962. In 1963, he joined the Directorate of Cottage & Small Scale Industries. Here under his able supervision the craftsmen of West Bengal started giving shape to his designs. Some of them went on to receive awards at the State and National Level.

As painting was always his first love, he took out time to create his dreams and imaginations from his busy official schedule. His works exhibited at premier galleries in New Delhi and Calcutta, met with much appreciation. Asis has worked in different media be it cross-hatching in ink, water colour or oil. From time to time he has also experimented with sculptural forms in wood, brass and clay. Infact some of his works on paper or canvas may be studied as a prelude to three-dimensional transcription.

The high point of Asis Pradhan's Oil on Canvas is that he blends colours harmoniously and the finest example of that is the ' Deprived Soul '. While maintaining the uniformity of vision, the red and blue of the bull and the back ground have been developed with dexterity. His water colours, on the other hand reveal depth of clarity as well as his spatiotemporal technical mastery over the medium.

The artist has also worked on medium sized canvases in dry chalky oil in fine tones and textures. Pradhan's evocation of female forms and nudes in their buoyantly classical attitudes is bold and their appeal is intensified by the degree of finesse in their technical execution. The stylization of the nudes often shows traces of European illustrators. At times, the artist evokes the massive and monumental proportions of the female torso in abstract sculptural dimensions though with due accent on chromatic and compositional elements. In others he reduces the form to a few elements which become the modal point for abstract landscapes. The graceful rhythmic postures and sensuous curves bring out nature at its resplendent best.

Intensely charged with passion and energy, the semi-abstract forms in most of his work revealed a technical virtuosity that comes in layers of experiences.In the year 2003 he was diagnosed of Parkinson desease, after which he stopped painting and concentrated only on the development of crafts and craftsmen in West Bengal. He believed in the motto “ART FOR LIFE'S SAKE”....