“The vocation, whether it be that of the farmer or the architect, is a function; the exercise of this function as regards the man himself is the most indispensable means of spiritual development, and as regards his relation to society the measure of his worth.”

- Ananda K Coomaraswamy

The magic of India lies in its very versatility, its bio-diversity and its interrogation of time past and time present. Unlike China, India still has enormous continuity in the development of the fine art practice. Within the genre of sculpture, tremendous strengths operate with the traditional/modern, local and global. In a country where sculpture becomes the fountainhead of architecture i.e. Ellora between the 6th to the 9th century CE, contemporary Indian sculpture is prancing on to new international heights.

With Subodh Gupta leading the pack of contemporary sculptors into the realm of visual culture, an entire new geography is being appropriated by this new brigade of sculptors, be it Valsan Koorma Kolleri, Mrinalini Mukherjee, NN Rimzon or Karl Antao all of who have adhered closely to their materials and language, there are others like Bharti Kher, Anita Dube, Jehangir Jani who are experimenting more with concepts and the politics of the art itself.

One dynamic young sculptor is Shiv Verma, who in his art practice has evolved a singular language which is multi-vocal – having a strong craft/tribal base which has layers of a global internationalism, both in concept and materials.

Shiv grew up in the village of Kundagaon, in the district of Bastar, an important crafts centre of central India where the wall paintings, dogra and iron crafts originate from. Dogra is a unique casting tradition of the tribes of Madhya Pradesh that has a unique surface texture which makes one feel that bronze wires are wound around the basic form. Bastar, which is a significant tribal centre for many years, had been a laboratory for modern English anthropologists, in particular such as in the books of Wilfred Vernon Grigson’s ‘The Maria Gonds of Bastar’ or Prem Chandra Agarwal’s ‘Human Geography of Bastar District’.

At the turn of the century, Oxbridge educated cultural anthropologists examined customs, cultural practices and social norms of the community. From markmaking to ‘ghotuls’ where complete empowerment of women was evident from these nature loving and nature inhabiting communities emerged craft practices which dealt with existentialist concerns of the interface between human/divine, magic/mundane, ritual/myth and tradition/modernity. Bare breasted women became the icons of cultural representation of this extremely evolved yet complex tribal structure.

As mentioned in a case study by Madhu Ramnath “Bastar is home to one of the worlds largest concentrations of adivasi population. These people depend for their sustenance on the forest, most of which falls under the jurisdiction of the wildlife and revenue sections of the Forest Department. Unusually, other religions have intervened little in the Hindu-tribal dynamics of the region, so that comparisons can be drawn quite clearly between traditional knowledge and beliefs, on one hand, and conventional views on the other.”

As part of the Fabian socialism adopted by our first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and the subsequent setting up of the ministry of Tribal Affairs by the Government of India, a surge of projects and plans were taken up in this sector. Both government and committed non-governmental agencies pooled resources, energy and manpower in a format structured system. Whether this intervention into a society which had its own systematic structures was the ‘correct’ approach is yet to be seen.

The land of the fearless tribes & natural resources, enriched with natural beauty and thick forests today is enveloped by the centres of the government and the private non governmental organisations for promoting art and crafts such as stone craft, iron craft, metal, terra-cotta to name a few. It was in such a soil that Shiv Verma was nurtured.

As a result of a chance encounter with a visual artist, the inspiring Navtoj Altaf , this young man from a naturally enriched cultural environment became the first person to enter the hallowed portals of the prestigious MS university Baroda - the alumni and home to some of India’s ‘star’ artists like Neelima Sheikh, Dhruva Mistry and KG Subramanyam to name a few.

Shiv got enrolled into the Bachelors of Fine Art program. Having worked with all the mediums to lay his foundation, he specialised and stood out in his Masters in Fine Arts by taking up the creative metal sculpture technique specialising in bronze and iron. Shiv researched in the archives and saw that very few artists were using the original metal medium, which provided a challenging terrain.

Wanting to experiment with different medium as per the concept of the work, metal became the starting point in the execution of his ideas.

Shiv Verma’s visual vocabulary reminds me of the sculptor, painter and media artist Yinka Shonibare who used indigenous African textiles and cultural references of the land of his ancestors while living and training in London. He has explored issues of race and class by adopting a richly complex and unconventional approach. In the same way Shiv Verma repeatedly visits and revisits the geography, topography and environment of his own personal history. His forms and concerns invariably have recurring leitmotifs from Bastar. Whether it is the biological or the botanical, the onslaught of globalisation creeps into his work. From hybrid fruits to enforced technology, the underbelly of globalisation is the basic skeleton of his work as expressed in his sculptures ‘The Tribal Gods’ and the ‘Third Eye’.

Shiv Verma uses both traditional and modern materials from cast iron to stainless steel. Verma works with the technique he watched, viewed and worked with the craftsmen of Bastar. It is in the articulation of forms that his formal training at the art college in Baroda leads the way.

Drawing unabashedly the mother of all art is yet another inherent strength of Verma’s. Different to a painter’s, the strength and power of Verma’s drawings bring in a vibrant energy to his set of paintings. The acrylics on canvas in this exhibition have been inspired by the wall paintings that he saw in his hometown in the earthy colours and tones. He has bought an interface of science and technology in his works that harmonises with the natural habitat.

Retiring, self effacing, shy almost to the point of a non verbal communication, Shiv’s voice has an uncanny potency in the sculptures in which he uses not just cast iron but also the more unrelenting metal i.e. stainless steel with equal dexterity. He knows the language of tribal art and technique and with his formal training at MS University Baroda, he literally weaves ‘magic’. Conceptually strong, mystically ‘crafty’ Shiv Verma brings in that enchanting pattern which has a political twist. His work is not only ethereally beautifully stunning the viewers into a gasp of silence, but also enticing the viewer to ‘re’ turn to look and ‘re’ look at what an encounter with craft can do.

A sensitive cerebral artist, Shiv Verma’s strength lies in his complete mastery of the craft, which he catapults into a contemporary cosmopolitan language.