Presentation by Kavita Shah

My association with print making is purely coincidental. I have done graduation in painting from faculty of Fine Arts, M.S.University of Baroda, Vadodara. It so happened that I didn’t get admission in painting for the masters program and that’s how I ended up opting for printmaking. In the initial year, I did not like any of the processes at all, I didn’t like to dirty my hands, had no patience to keep grinding stones, had no strength to move the litho press: every process in print making department required labor, skill and patience, even drying paper after printing! Though it was by chance that I opted for this medium, but having entered this field I realized at the end of the 2 years course that I could not leave it and shift to another medium.

Previous speaker Ravi Kumar Kashi has brought forward many important points about printmaking practices and education, and I do have counterpoints but that will be going in different directions. Perhaps we can discuss it bit later.

I would like to begin with my early work,(from 90s)since it is significant work of my journey of image making. According to me, in printmaking technique is one thing and content or image making is another thing. And how both the things gel together is what good print is all about. This litho print: as the title says, when everything goes wrong, about feeling depressed and down: putting head between the pillows, wanting to haul, the expression on the face of a girl depicted with crayon on lime stone. The contribution of medium, the crayon marks and black line transferred from litho stone is adding to the content of the work.

If we replace the word “print making” with a word “ image making” and make it a bigger umbrella, I think most of the issues(that Ravi Kashi pointed out) will get dissolved. I see all the processes that we have within the umbrella of printmaking as a medium for creating an image that we have in mind. As in cooking, depending on what one wants to cook: if I want to eat Italian, I will cook pasta or other suitable ingredients used for Italian cuisine. Similarly, in print technique chosen for the content is kind of adding to the flavor or mood of the work. However, as a student one has to learn all the processes, the suitability of process with image or content comes later. Yet, “I could have done it(the image) better in another medium” will always be there as one grows older and wiser.

My approach to printmaking was often that of exploring/experimenting different processes. At times, not knowing the process well can lead me to unknown areas and that is what I find very exciting about printmaking.

This is linocut and etching. This was my first attempt to mix two medium of printing. Freedom is something one has to take at times. They (in college) generally teach you all the basics of processes, how we use it mostly depends on the individual. So, from very narrative (images)I shifted to technique oriented image building, I started mixing medium.

Slowly, I moved from narrative/figurative style to geometrical/ symbolic language. In this work (the title is concrete jungle), instead of making a building I have used triangles, that are very static and solid (concrete) forms. I think the whole process of print making includes technique, thoughts, the medium (with its advantages and disadvantages) which has to gel with the original idea.

In this work, my realization of everything as a pattern was transmitted (in grids) first time and has continued till now.

This is from the same phase, my journey of transferring thoughts/ideas in symbols. I was interpreting Mahabharta in essence, this way, where there is five Pandavas as five triangles with grounded (as positive energy), 100 black lines (more of negativities) horizontal spreading from the corner as Kauravas Lord of evil spirits, and Draupadi as temptation in the opposite corners of (kaurava) the plates in curves and in red, to minimize and symbolize the elements of good, bad and temptations.

Creating a texture of crayon on the zinc plate was another thing which I enjoyed most in etching but it was not part of conventional methods. Most people would put aquatint for tones and textures. There are (as Ravi Kashi mentioned) many the rules and the regulations for printmakers which becomes quit limiting and suppressing at times. I felt very rebellious about having all the regulations only for printmakers not for painters or sculptors. For instance in edition making each print has to be same, identical, signed, numbered and plate to be cancelled. It was becoming boring for me to print exactly the same print for 20 times when my mind was moving faster than my hand, and imagining the same image in different colors…! So I took the liberty of doing edition as decided numbers but in variations. I took different colors in intaglio another color in rollers and made edition of 20 as numbered but each image would be in different color. Recently, I have used some part of one plate with one part of another plate, created collage and yet it was possible to make edition.

Pattern of thoughts- in mind one thought follows another one, unknowingly submerge in the background and another one comes in focus, gets merged with previous one…all this creates some kind of new pattern in the mind. I use ready made images of textile, Islamic architecture or rangoli. By transferring the found pattern on the plate is how my image building begins. Cutting some part in acid, blocking some parts, burnishing and scraping the plates in certain way create/add to the pattern. Ironically, having worked with this process for a longtime, somehow I feel trapped/ restricted.

My mind starts constructing the image when I start filling and polishing the plate. The image starts developing in my mind and on the plate simultaneously. I am often not sure about what will be the end result. For me the whole process is very exciting and I enjoy it plate making as much as printing. Though I have been printing for many years, still when I lift the paper from the plate, I feel very excited about what is going to come! I think this element of surprise is what find fascinating about this medium.

These are small portfolios, comprise of 3, 2 or 5 prints each, about similar ideas.

I have used readymade pattern, that changes great deal while cutting in acid or changing the colors of intaglio or rollers. The technique runs in the background like music, I guess after many years of working in the same medium, you know this is how things are going to take shape. The best part is that you use any idea with certain technique, it’s like notes of the music where you know some notes can go up and others would go down, eventually they all fall in line!

At Faculty of Fine arts where I studied for many years, making a decorative painting was kind of taboo. “Oh, this work is very decorative “, sounded very disapproving. Patterns as symbol of decoration, I have used lately was kind of rebelling to this notion, questioning what is wrong with decorativeness? Very consciously I started using decorative forms and patterns. Ironically my work started swinging from decorative to minimal.

Water colors between the lines

When I got into fine arts, I had no idea where I am going to get my bread and butter from. Among us if somebody’s painting was sold that person was labeled as “his work is very saleable” kind of put off tone. I think our time (1979-83) was different, not many galleries came looking for young artists like they do these days.

(Quintuplate) This is the work which I did in 2004, exhibited in XI Triennial India.

(write up on the work)

One womb, one embryo, then a foetus, twins, triplets and sometimes quintuplets; arising from a common source, combining the best of several worlds. Echoes reverberate over centuries, manifesting in a generation or over several generations.

Deeply embedded in man’s psyche is a need; a need to explore and exploit, a need to conquer and surrender a need to indulge or abstain.

Whether it were the concentration camps, cold-bloodedly conceived to wipe out the Jews, thought up by a man who painted in his spare time, to a common man who kills in a moment of fury or a man who hits a woman because he can’t handle himself, to a Buddha, a master, a Gandhi, one who has conquered self; there are shades and shades and hues and hues, nuances and subtleties that are juxtaposed in humankind.

It has been shown over ages that humankind has a humane side as well as a bestial side and a part of society with this animalistic instinct tends to often even glorify acts as deplorable as genocide and war.

The printmakers experiment with technique or form and hones their skills over a period of time to create a colossal oeuvre of which there is at least one chef-d’oeuvre. In spite of chiseling the skill, they do not turn out work like a machine or produce identical copies, but their works grows, as do their ideas – due to the change in perspective, which is a consequence of experience and reflection.

The core idea remains constant – the manifestations are in myriad colors, sometimes a riot, at times toned down.

Thus the idea having been borne in the same mind, as a foetus/plate in the womb, grows differently depending on imprinter/printer.

About Chhaap: After I completed masters in printmaking in 1985, there was not any print studio in Baroda where I could work therefore I went to in Kanoria art Centre, Ahemdabad for 2and half years. Later on went to Bharat Bhavan Bhopal in search of printmaking facilities again. Eventually, when I worked with Robert Blackburn in New York, I was inspired to start my own print making studio. Bob was about 85 years old, master printer in down town Manhattan full of energy and passion for print making. I guess his energy got rubbed on me. On my return to India in 1999, with few friends, I started Chhaap: Baroda Print Making Workshop ( as Bob’s studio was called Print Making Workshop)

Professor Gulam Mohammad Sheikh, Vijay Bagodi and I sat down in the backyard of my father’s office to plan how to set up cooperative printmaking studio where we can do our own prints, provide facility to other artists to print and also organize programs to bring awareness about limited edition original prints.

We had two etching presses, one large room in the back yard, a petty cash of 25,000 rupees and many ideas about what good print making workshop should be! We thought about fund raising by making small etching portfolio with help of other artists friends. Senior and well know artists like Jairam Patel, Jyoti Bhatt, Bhupen Khakkar, Nilima Sheikh, Surendran Nair and Rekha Rodwittiya came forward to make small plate for first Chhaap portfolio. Vijay Bagodi and I made edition of 50 of 12 small plate (4x6inches) by all these wonderful artists.

We sold each set of 12 prints for 2,500 rupees and bought rollers and other equipments for the print studio. I had already worked in few community print workshops in India and abroad and had ideas about issues about running such facilities. We did not want to make profit but wanted to be sustainable, so stared planning programs that can generate revenues. Open studio facility where artist/student can hire studio on monthly basis on reasonable fee, collaboration and edition making for artists, organizing exhibition and sale, talk and lecture by visiting artists and finally Artist in residence program.

After making 3 portfolio with help of local artists, I though about organizing exhibition of women print makers. Being a woman and being a printmaker, I often used to wonder and ask my self question like why am I doing prints? … what aspect of process is holding me to it?...and many more issues one deals with through journey as an artist.

I invited 30 women artists from spanning different cultures and generations to answer the same questions about being a woman printmaker and approach to medium. From countries like Pakistan, Hong Kong, Uk, USA and India and age group of 25 to 75 years…it made an interesting study for me and each other to find how different women of different generations and traditions where reacting to the same questions/quarry about medium, image making, pain and pleasure of being a women printmaker.

There is some kind of addiction, thinking process itself adds to one’s image making/building. Hence it get amalgamated- the process and image. Even process of edition making where one is repetitive work of inking, wiping and printing the same image becomes meditative for some artists. Niana Dalal, the senior most artists has put her etching press next to her kitchen, even today, makes her own edition of 30,40 or 50 prints. Many more such insight about women printmakers were worth sharing with viewers who only sees the end results.

Footprints-women in printmaking, showing 60 prints done in various processes such as Woodcut, lithography, screen print, etching, pulp print and block prints, traveled in many cities in India such as Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Vadodara. It was also shown in Southern Graphic Council conference in Kansas city, USA. Entire project was possible with the generous support from Hivos.

Setting up a studio like Chhaap was one thing and making it run is another thing. Lina Vincent, the program coordinator at A.R.T. kept asking me to include economics of print studio and sale of prints, but honestly, I am still to understand it myself. Sustainability is a huge issue. We have been doing many project like Footprints-women in printmakers, Ganjifa –on deck of cards, Snakes and Ladders on the game where the artists gets print from each other few extra sets for chhaap to sale and raise funds for the future projects. We also do edition making for artists and conduct short term workshops on mono print, dry point, etching, Bookmaking etc. to generate revenue and take care of day to day expenses.

In this constantly changing world, prints have changed many roles from bookmaking to poster to single prints serving purpose of documenting, recording, entertaining, revolting, of souvenir: finally of investment the most unfortunate one. My acquaintances, who never came for my show earlier, now they want to know why don’t I paint on canvas or how much these print will appreciate ( in term of money)

On the flip side, everything has its own place under the sun. I believe in few American universities, even today they teach black and white photography in traditional way by putting paper manually in chemicals. The point is, one has to have an open mind and accept new medium, but one need not negate what is traditional and what is old. Everything has its own pluses and minuses and one should accept it in totality. And take it if it suits your sensibilities or you look for the one which is more suitable to your sensibility. Most of these international symposiums on printmaking have a huge debate on these new processes of digital technology versus traditional. When I invite artists for exchange portfolios, I ask them to use any traditional methods. Some of them reply,” can I use digital and then use block printing ?” No grinding stones, polishing plates just pressing of finger…and one create such diverse images…we cannot ignore it anymore, its right here. It goes so well with the the kind of lifestyle we have, cell phones, sms, emails, two minutes noodles, Pizza delivered in 45 minutes,fast food!!

As an external examiner at Faculty of Fine Arts in 2009,I did not see any work done in the process of lithography, the fact about present scenario. With the changing time and one has to move on and accept the fact. But, not by negating anything or demeaning any medium or processes. Digitally generated prints has its own flavor and manually hand pulled lithograph has its own charm.