What happens to visuals when they are translated in a different medium and presented in front of a new audience? The outcome of the translation may remind you of the earlier context but the new medium, location and audience associate varied meanings to it. Champa’s works displayed at Sumukha Gallery is an example of one such process.
Her huge woodcut prints have the language of Raja Ravi Varma’s paintings due to the kind of climax scenes that are taken, the gestures of the images and the mythological references. But Champa’s prints unlike Raja Ravi Varma’s are influenced by popular culture and are not the trend setters of popular culture. For example, the print Balanajaneya reminds you of an infant from a baby powder advertisement but the limited number of prints and the artist’s style remove it from the grips of pop culture.
The images look like posters made out of the cover pages of comic books which narrate the story behind it. The text accompanying the pictures help in the narration as well. But the positioning of the text makes it a part of the image where the eye is guided to the text through the image and not the other way round. But the hierarchy between illustrations and mainstream art is bridged very intelligently through the works of Champa, who herself is a mainstream artist. The audience stands back and contemplates on visuals which they would have hardly given a second look to, if it were printed on a page in a magazine in a much smaller size. Does the wooden frame, the gallery space, the individuality of the artist and the size of the image change the way the visuals are treated altogether? The artist is very aware of the prejudices associated with the images and the references she uses and she circumvents it by pointing it out herself!
In the context of this show Hanuman is not Ram’s companion but Ram is hanuman’s companion since Hanuman and his monkey troupe are the heroes of every narrative in the print. It is interesting to see how a woman artist, who is also married, visualizes a bal bramhachari through her works. The family portrait of the Monkey -god or maybe one of the members of his troupe shows us her take on the story.
