This artist is using Chinese art techniques to create rural India
Artist Nandita Bhattacharya’s paintings of India are on Chinese rice paper, watercolours and brush strokes
Water bodies, trees, boats, flowers, and other elements of Indian landscapes are set to acquire a new meaning in an exhibition Emotions In Colour, which will showcase watercolour paintings by artist Nandita Bhattacharya. And her canvas for these artworks? Chinese rice paper using Chinese watercolours, and Chinese-style brushwork.
“Chinese painting is strokebased. If I want to paint a coconut tree, I’ll require a different kind of brush stroke than the stroke required to paint a rose flower. Also, since I use thin Chinese watercolour to paint, I have to paint every petal in a single stroke,” says Bhattacharya, whose 12” by 24” artworks will be exhibited along with paintings by artists Ananda Gopal Roy and Swati Roy. Bhattacharya, who uses this technique to explore the various moods of Indian rural landscapes during various seasons, learnt this style at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, Singapore. “Chinese painters constantly update themselves. My teachers visit China to learn new painting techniques, and I visit them to update myself. If I have to paint an Indian Mogra flower, I try to create it using my own style, and then get it approved by my teacher,” she says.
The beauty of Chinese-style paintings is attained after overcoming challenges, which include gaining expertise in painting on rice paper. “Rice paper is very thin and delicate. It has a tendency to tear up. Also, Chinese painting is freestyle. So, I don’t do a sketch; I paint directly. And even if I try to draw it first with a pen or a pencil, it will be impossible to hide those lines with colours because the thin Chinese watercolours will make the pencil lines more prominent,” she adds.
Wonder how the colours merge beautifully on the rice paper vis a vis canvas? “The Chinese watercolours are minerals extracted from the mountains in China. They are tiny pieces of rocks that are scrubbed with water to produce colours used to paint.”