Ahmedabad: Artist Nehal Desai takes us through a journey of emotional despair in a series of lithographs and etching prints. Pained acutely by her son’s departure to study abroad, she portrays her emotional journey from the depths of despondency to the relative equilibrium of mundane life through the challenging medium of printmaking, like lithography, etching, and aquatint techniques.
Printmaking is a specialised discipline that, unfortunately, because of the requirements of expensive tools, specialised equipment and studio space requirements, is not as popular. Although there is a rich tradition of printmaking in India, from Ravi Varma’s popular lithographic prints to evocative works of Haren Das and Somnath Hore, to contemporary stalwarts such as Jyoti Bhatt, and Anupam Sud among others, printmaking shows are far and few in between. Some private studio spaces offer residencies, but most of the work happens in art colleges and universities.
Recently, there has been an interest in linocut printmaking and screenprinting on social media, with workshops being conducted for beginners.
The unseen, unknown
Desai produced these prints at the Printmaking Studio at CEPT University, Ahmedabad, working as the artist in residence in 2024. The show titled ‘Unseen/Unknown’ will go on till 20 April at the university. Reminiscent of what Robert Burton, in his magnum opus about depression, Anatomy of Melancholy, called “terrible monstrous fictions in a thousand shapes and apparitions”, Desai’s work is suffused with maleficent monsters and desolate jungles, capturing the essence of a mind in turmoil.
A striking piece in this series, ‘Ghost of the Dark’, features eerie, wide-eyed amorphous monsters menacingly peeping through seaweed-like filamentous growths in a dark forest, setting the sombre mood of the series until the final transformation.
This series departs from her usual language of geographic terrains of lush forests and effervescent animal and flower forms, moving to a darker and introspective tone. But the symbols remain the same; we see the forests, not in their restorative form but as a stage where fear and hopelessness emerge. The animals also feature her work prominently, albeit mutated and in a malevolent role, in this fable of despair and redemption.
In the first section of lithography prints called ‘Myriad Emotions’, the artist comes to grips with her intense emotions. “I have never felt something like this before, something like fear. I would wake up in the middle of the night and walk into doors,” Desai said. The grey-tinted prints set the tone of this series, as the jungle is a dark and lonely place inhabited by dangerous animals. These hybrid forms are a version of the artist herself, much younger, vulnerable, and lost.
In ‘Harm’s Distance’, a bird-woman hybrid lovingly gazes at a paper boat, or in ‘I Remember You’, she is anxiously protecting her eggs. These forms are all cowering and fall prey to melancholia and doom.
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Sisyphean labour of lithography
Desai worked hermetically for four months and reacquainted herself with difficult printmaking techniques. The lithography process begins with grinding the surface of a limestone slab using an iron grinder. The slab must be absolutely flat; even a few millimetres of slope can throw a print off. Then, she draws onto the stone with an oil-based pencil. The stone slab is then treated with chemicals that make the drawing ‘stick’ to the limestone while the rest is washed away. After repeating this process many times, the slab is rolled with ink with a heavy leather roller, by hand, repeatedly——for a single print. Finally, it is placed on a roller machine with paper laid on top and passed through the press. And even then, when the paper is lifted, there is no guarantee of success.
For the next set of lithographs, ‘Creatures of my Mind’, the darkness is somewhat lifted, and the animal forms grow bolder and seem to control their environment. “I later figured out that it was fear of separation from my son; it was too emotional, too traumatic,” the artist said. This realisation seems to have infused a sense of clarity in these works; the forests have receded, and the animal forms take centre stage. They stand up, sprout wings, protect the young who are making paper boats, and soothe a lost woman in the forest, culminating in a symbolic slaying of the darkness.
The lightness that comes after hard physical labour echoes Albert Camus’ interpretation of the Myth of Sisyphus—who, rather than falling into despair, emerges ‘stronger than a rock’ once he makes peace with the pointlessness of his pursuits. In much the same way, the tireless rolling and grinding of the lithographer’s stone brings to the surface a lightness and equilibrium in the prints.
The hiding tigress
The final part of the series, ‘Emerging Emotions’, uses etching techniques, aquatints and watercolours. Etching is also a tedious and demanding technique. A metal plate is first coated with a thin layer of wax, and the drawing is ‘etched’ by scratching away the wax with a sharp tool. The plate is then immersed in acid, which eats into the plate unprotected by the wax, leaving behind the drawing as grooves on the metal plate. After that, the plate is smeared with ink, and prints are lifted off it.
Here, the artworks have foregone the monochrome mood and taken on the world’s colours – a vermilion forest, lush and thriving vine, a brown monkey buoyantly in stride, a tigress relaxing in a meadow. It’s almost a relief that the artist has crossed the stages of grief and has landed back on even terrain. But the landings of modern society are unstable, and a closer look at Desai’s art shows these uncertainties. The place of women in society, the question of faith, and environmental degradation.
In the artwork called ‘The Worshipper’, three monkeys are worshipping a stone tablet with a deity drawn on it; hidden behind it is a tigress, forced to hide and not show her real powers. It feels like it’s the best we can get in the current state of the world. The colours glow, but looking deeper, the uncertainty and strands of melancholia still hang, only to be shrouded in the daily mundane activities.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)
