Jyoti Bhatt is one of India’s acclaimed artists, whose artistic journey spans painting, print-making and photography. An alumnus of M.S. University of Baroda, he studied painting and printmaking under N. S .Bendre, K.G. Subramanyan and Sankho Chaudhuri and later joined as faculty in the same university. He also studied fresco and mural painting at Banasthali Vidyapith in Rajasthan. Experimental in medium and material, his artistic sensibility was shaped by creative experiments that drew inspiration from western movements and indigenous cultural practices. In 1961, Bhattji received an Italian scholarship to study painting and etching at the Academia di Bella Arti in Naples. In 1964, he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship which was followed by the Rockefeller grant to learn print-making at the Pratt Institute in New York. From 1966 - 1995, Bhattji was involved in documentative photography of the folk and tribal traditions of India while simultaneously practicing print-making in Baroda. These photographs have both anthropological and aesthetic values and Bhattji’s interest in documenting indigenous traditions was inspired by K.G. Subramanyan’s pedagogical concepts to contextually study the crafts. His numerous photographs record the visual culture of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh, apart from nature-scapes and candid shots of his friends and colleagues. Though Bhattji’s investigations into village and tribal designs certainly influenced the motifs he uses in his printmaking, he considers his documentary photographs to be an art form in themselves. His camera replaced his sketchbook, he comments.
Bhattji received many awards in the course of his career and was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award (Distinguished Photo Artist) in 2005 by the Academy of Visual Media, New Delhi. Jyoti Bhatt has also explored digital printing and holography. His work evokes a relational aesthetics between the urban and rural arts and also popular cultural practices.

His work has been part of multiple solo and group shows, and is in numerous international collections, including the Museum of Modern Art , New York, The Smithsonian Institution , Washington D.C., and The British Museum, London.

Today he will talk about his graphic prints in context with the techniques, in relation with the circumstances when they were made and the meanings that he had in his mind and tried to communicate visually.

Kavita Shah has done masters in printmaking from the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda. She has had many solo shows and has participated in international print binnale, Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal, X1 Triennale India, Small format show, Chicago, Multiple Encounter, New York and many more. She was invited to print and show in Le Mois de L'estamps, Paris. After working with Robert Blackburn she returned to India and started print workshop in Baroda in 1999. The Chhaap- Baroda Printmaking Workshop (a tribute to Robert Blackburn's legendary studio - Print making Workshop) has been jointly promoted by Kavita along with two other Baroda based artists, Vijay Bagodi and Ghulammohammed Sheikh. It was established as a non-profit making organization on a cooperative basis with a mission to create and promote wider appreciation of original prints and print making techniques.

Kavita has written articles, presented papers and projects for fund raising. She enjoys travelling, teaching art and conducting print workshops.

Today Kavita will present excerpts from her journey as a printmaker in terms of image making and establishing the cooperative studio Chhaap in Baroda. She will also touch upon issues and ideas about development and sustainability fof a print studio. 

Ravikumar Kashi completed his BFA in Painting from College of Fine Arts, Bangalore in 1988, MFA in Printmaking from Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University of Baroda in 1990 and M.A. in English from Mysore University in 1995. He was a visiting faulty in the Dept of Architecture and the Department of Visual Arts, at Bangalore University as well as Sri Bhagwan Mahaveer Jain College. In 2001 he studied handmade papermaking under J. Parry at the Papermaking Resource, Glasgow School of Art, in the UK, with a grant from the Charles Wallace India Trust. Since 1991 he has had more than fifteen solo shows and many more group shows at Bangalore, Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, and Hyderabad in India and Glasgow in the U.K. He has also taken part in a number of curated shows and annual exhibitions in India and in Munich, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong , Glasgow, Perth, Mexico, Toronto including 10th Triennale India held in New Delhi and 11th Asian Art Biennale, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He has won Karnataka Lalit Kala Akademi award thrice and National Award in 2000. Ravi also writes on art in Kannada and English for various magazines and newspapers. He recently learnt Hanji - traditional Korean paper making from Jaang Yong Hoon and Seong Woo at Jang Ji Bang, Korea. Residency funded by INKO Centre, Chennai.

Ravi is a multifaceted artist with a great many social concerns, and a love for learning paired with constant need to grow as an artist exploring different mediums to find niche where he feels his expression can be complete. These aspects of his nature are translated into visuals and feature in the imagery and iconography he employs in his paintings, installation work, prints, photography and the several other avenues he has explored. He lives and works in Bangalore.

Today he will be presenting a personal contextualization of printmaking in India, bringing out salient points in the fine art teaching system, the changing visual art practice and the shifting market trends.

This platform, and the presentations by the three artists with us here, provides the rest of us with a framework within which to rethink strategies, and deliberate upon the current status of the medium; the possibilities of its practice and its positioning in the art market, and the varied layers of discussion that fall in between. These include, and are not limited to, the peculiarities of our fine art education system, the characteristic nature of the gallery network and art market, the prominence and/or absence of the artists’ individual and collective voice, the compilation of a new art history, and the audience perception of an art form.

The definition of printmaking has transitioned over the decades, from a democratic medium that produced ‘art for all people’ to an elite fine art. Its very assets – the varied techniques intrinsic to its making, and its quality of being made into limited editions turned into problems in its valuing and appreciation.

We have with us today a variety of voices, both from the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’, and I hope some of you will lead the discussion in resolving the grey areas in the understanding of printmaking and ascertain its relevant absorption into the pluralistic aesthetic language of contemporary Indian art.