Lucknow: The second day of the All India Folk and Tribal Art Camp going on in the exhibition hall of Doshi Bhawan of the Faculty of Architecture and Planning remained a center of attraction for hundreds of students, art lovers, artists and architects. Because the eleven artists from four states of the country present in the camp are particularly proficient in their respective mediums.
The medium used in the various arts being done in the camp mainly includes cotton cloth, paper, bamboo tiles, girl’s utensils, clay toys, terracotta plates, thin thick layers of shola trees, and bark of special types of trees. Natural colors have been used.
Art curators Bhupendra Asthana and Ratnapriya Kant said that people flocked to the event to cherish the work of expert artist Dr. Ramshabd Singh to especially know and understand the Kohbar art of the eastern regions of Uttar Pradesh. Generally, very few people know about this thousands of years old art which is created during marriages. The reason is that this art was not publicized much due to which this art could not reach more people than the art of other regions. Among the 11 different arts, Assam Majuli Mask is prepared by making a frame of bamboo slats and applying a paste of cow dung and clay on it and then finally using acrylic color to make it colorful and attractive. Manuscript painting of Assam is done by preparing the bark of a special type of tree and then painting it using natural colours.
In this series is the Shola Peeth painting of Dhubri, Assam. The skin of the root of a tree called Shola is extracted and used to make decorative masks and paintings. This is the Phad painting of Rajasthan in which the artist has made a painting based on Hanuman Chalisa using natural colours. Patchitra artist from Bengal has depicted the entire Ramayana on a 30 feet long cloth, which is very attractive. There is another art of Bengal in which various clay toys are heated in coal and colored and decorated with the help of lac.
In this, Mandana art which is a wonderful art of Rajasthan is made by 75 year old Vidya Devi using two colors red and white on paper in which she makes Mandana based on various festivals. Dinesh Soni is an artist of Pichwai art of Rajasthan who uses natural colors in his art. An artist from West Bengal who makes different shapes with brass leaves on a mane (a vessel used for measurement) made of mango wood and decorates the mane with those shapes is called Sherpai. In this series, Shora art of Assam Silchar in which figures are made with different colors on terracotta plate. This painting is mainly used on the occasion of Lakshmi Puja. And finally an artist from Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh who reflects our culture through Kohbar art. The subject matter of all these artists is mainly based on our mythological stories.
Dheeraj Yadav, co-ordinator of the camp, said that the folk art festival is an all India folk and tribal art camp.
Stage performance of folk arts (Special Majuli Mask and Patchitra) on the concluding evening. Artists: Khagen Goswami (Assam) and Seramuddin Chitrakar (West Bengal). Chief Guest Anil Rastogi senior theater artist and film actor, Sandeep Yadav, theater artist and film actor. The display happened at the Open Air Theatre, Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University, Tagore Marg (Nadwa Road) campus.
