In the same week AI-generated Studio Ghibli pictures flooded the internet, stirring both awe and rightly placed disdain, I visited the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art in Delhi, which was showcasing a major retrospective (February 6-June 30) celebrating the work of artist, poet, and art historian Gulammohammed Sheikh. Titled ‘Of Worlds Within Worlds’, the retrospective has on display 190 works, spanning six decades, which includes oil paintings, gouaches, prints, digital collages, ceramic sculptures, accordion books and large-scale installations. It takes one through the several worlds the 88-year-old has inhabited and the concurrent changes in the world within him, an impact of the scale that is hard for data-guzzling machines to replicate.
His latest work finished in 2023, ‘Kaarawaan’ (257 inches long and 80 inches high, acrylic on canvas), marks the entry into Sheikh’s artistic world. The size is matched by the painting’s scale and scope as if encapsulating Sheikh’s entire world. On an ark-like boat akin to ‘A Boat Adrift on a River’ by the 18th century miniaturist Nainsukh, one can see several timelines, geographies and fields of work coexisting. There is Frida Kahlo, and also Mahatma Gandhi, M.F. Husain, and also Mughal miniature artists, Sufi dervishes swirling in trance, and also Mirabai. Then there is Kabir, the 16th century poet-saint, who appears in Sheikh’s work repeatedly, if not constantly.
“I don’t see history as dead wood or just a storehouse of past events,” Sheikh told THE WEEK. “I like to cut across space and time, both historical and mythical, to evolve a passage to traverse multiple trajectories simultaneously. In the end, the experience takes the form of journeys which fascinate me, especially with wanderlust inscribed on every vein of my heart and in the soles of my feet.”
From growing up in Surendranagar in Gujarat to studying fine arts at the Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodara and the Royal College of Art, London, and back to Vadodara as a teacher, Sheikh’s journey shows in his work, which becomes confident, bold and more complex in theme but simplistic in execution. The colours red, yellow and green, considered difficult palettes, become more and more common over the years.
While Sheikh displays his inner worlds and influences, such as Kabir, he does not shy away from painting the darkest moments in India’s political history, with riots in Gujarat finding a space again and again. One such painting, titled ‘City for Sale’, showcases a city in chaos. Three men light up a cigarette as if signifying that the same spark can also set the city on fire. Two women sit on balconies, unbothered, as others go about their usual business. The city is lit on one side, as people can be seen fighting, with two men unclothing a third to see if he is circumcised. A vegetable seller drives her cart and a young girl hides behind it, terrified. In the middle of all this is a poster of the 1981 film Silsila, with Rekha’s eyes left incomplete. The line between political and personal appears to blur.
“Art and power have always been at loggerheads, but the artists seem to have answered the challenges of time by devising different linguistic devices,” says Sheikh.
The artist also paints his personal world, especially the idea of home, which appears again and again, such as in ‘Returning Home after Long Absence’, in which he draws both his mother and his village, signifying how a home can mean more than one thing.
What adds to the allure of Sheikh’s work is the storytelling. In a stunning piece titled ‘Speaking Street’, he takes a viewer through a tour of a street. One can almost feel the spaces depicted—exiting from a house on to the street, entering a mosque and exiting, again on the street where people are conversing.
In his artistic journey, Sheikh has dabbled in several mediums. One of the most unusual ones is the Rajasthani kaavads. A prominent part of Rajasthan’s oral storytelling tradition, these are mobile shrines worn around the neck as the person wearing it goes from village to village narrating tales. There are huge kaavads, too, with saints painted on them. Then there is the Mappamundi, a medieval European map of the world, to which Sheikh renders his own artistic expression.
“I have drawn from multiple sources, eastern and western, from Mughal, Rajasthani and Ajanta to the Sienese and the modern masters of Europe like [René] Magritte and [Max] Beckmann,” says Sheikh. “These happened at different periods. I have, however, striven to carve individual paths while crossing all these terrains.”
He is a poet and a teacher, too. “Yes, I painted, wrote, taught, and lived a normal life,” he says. “I taught roughly 21 classes a week with subjects as diverse as ‘European art from Greek to Renaissance’, ‘far eastern art’, and ‘Indian aesthetics’ for both junior and graduate classes. But, this did not prevent me from painting and writing. It all depends on your attitude, will and whatever energy you have in store.” About still painting at 88, he says “to continue painting is part routine, but also an inner need which keeps you going”.
However, the world has changed much since Sheikh began as an artist, and while traditional art assumes a space of its own, forms of digital art are galore, with AI art being the latest. While Sheikh, too, has dabbled in digital art, he has a crucial insight to share. “It is a seductive medium that claims to offer hundreds of options and solutions to entrance unsuspecting minds,” he says. “Many who are unaware of the dangers of shortcuts often fall victim to these traps. Many then begin to view it as an ultimate. It is, however, important to remember that art practices that fall victim to shortcuts or easy solutions end up producing pastiche.”