Body Of Work

On a cold but fortunately sunny Delhi morning, I arrive at Anupam Sud’s house, nestled in the quaint bougainvillea-decked lanes of Mandi village on the outskirts of Delhi. The artist, dressed in a red cardigan and armed with an amount of vigour that I confess I did not expect given her age, is standing by the gate with her former student, Rajesh Rana. The crisp sun does not grace the drive-in which is blocked by unplanned construction work on both sides of her house. As 81-year-old Sud laments the same, a series of honking trucks pass by, punctuating the moment. She adds that when she first moved here a decade prior, the locality had been serene, empty and sunny — ideal ground for her studio which is located in the basement of the house.

“Printmaking is like an addiction; with time, you get more drunk (on it),” says Sud, who is among India’s foremost printmakers, about her artistic drive. Having practised printmaking for over six decades, Sud is a champion of this artistic tradition and its evolution in modern India. Painting traditions have been a dominant practice within the Subcontinent for centuries, with Western techniques such as oil painting making inroads thanks to the Baroda group of artists, institutions like the Sir J. J. School of Art in Mumbai and hubs like Santiniketan in West Bengal. Printmaking, however, lacked that focus and resource allocation. When Sud first enrolled in Delhi Polytechnic (now the College of Art, Delhi) in 1962, there were very few resources available for printmaking in the country. Sud’s teacher and noted printmaker, Jagmohan Chopra, tried solving this dilemma by designing a custom machine, which he likened to a sugarcane juicer, with the help of an ironsmith at Ajmeri Gate in Old Delhi — jugaad! His efforts subsequently led to the genesis of Chopra’s Group 8 — consisting  of emerging artists in printmaking — of which Sud was a member.

Her house is dotted with memorabilia from her travels — statues, masks, porcelain — and numerous artworks by her contemporaries and students. I spy a piece by F. N. Souza on one wall; the late artist had given it to her after she helped him print an artwork for him. Her work is figurative and quite often devoid of overt narratives. Sud isn’t a literalist and her creations stand out because of the deeply personal and boundary-pushing subject matter. When asked if Sud is inspired by her surroundings and geographical context, Sud points out that if she preferred to reflect her surroundings literally, she would have opted to become a landscape painter, putting to canvas her upbringing in picturesque Shimla.

Sud is known for her signature medium of printmaking, intaglio, which is rich in tonality and shadows, and reminiscent of the chiaroscuro work practised by European masters. The figures in her work are mostly nude; according to Sud, the nude body represents the most basic form of creation. She frequently omits regional traits in the bodies that she creates  — “pan-humanism” if you will. Sud prefers to look beyond ethnic borders, allowing her work to achieve a timeless quality.

Gender dynamics, on the other hand, feature prominently in Sud’s work. The lived experience of women and the body language of women around men (and vice versa) serve as the anthropological basis for Sud’s Dialogue series. She has worked with a motley of mediums — etching, sculpture, collagraphy, oil painting, screen-printing and intaglio printing. The desire to create and push forward regardless of circumstances has been a defining element of Sud’s career. Due to a debilitating accident in 2008 and her growing age, she bemoans that she cannot etch and print as much as she used to. And so she has switched to oil painting which she finds liberating — currently, a large canvas of a nude woman holding two masks in shades of orange and yellow sits in her studio half-finished.

Masks are another recurring motif in her work. Fifteen masks lie opposite the painting. These have been collected from various countries. There are more tucked away inside her house — Sud mentions being fascinated by Noh theatre masks and her observations of Japanese gender norms. These masks, from Asia and Africa, don’t serve a literal purpose in inspiring her but they remind her of the multiple faces each of us wears in our daily lives. Ruminating on the interrelations between the sexes or the flow of human emotions and social expectations, for instance, spurs Sud to dive into the depth and complexity of humanity as a conduit for all-inclusive ideas.

As we wrap up our conversation, Sud tells me about knick-knacks acquired during her travels to South-East and East Asia. When I get up to leave, a beam of the late afternoon sun filters through her living room blinds and rests on an oddly familiar sculpture of a hand in a mudra pose. I ask Sud about its origins and she informs me that it represents an apsara’s (celestial nymph) hand. The traditional Khmer apsara dance , which is performed exclusively by Cambodian women, focuses on taking audiences through sociocultural and mythological stories via non-verbal choreography. The emphasis on the human form aligns with many of Sud’s artistic codes. Was the placement of the sculpture next to the entrance intentional? I don’t ask her, I muse to myself about the artist’s intentions as we do when we consume art in spacious galleries. I leave satisfied with my inference of the portrait Sud has painted for herself, her house, her objects and her studio.