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The title ‘Through the language of dots and dashes’ comes from an Indian folk art known as
‘Gond art’ whose history goes back to as many as 1400 years but remained unknown to
outsiders up until the 1980s, mainly found in Madhya Pradesh and surrounding states of India.
The Gond traditionally painted on mud walls of their houses depicting their natural and
mythological world, the images being rich in detail, color, mystery, and humor. It has been used
by the Gond people as a way to record their history. I was born and brought up in Bhopal city,
growing up I saw these paintings on several street walls and galleries. For my own drawings, the
images reference my own surroundings, which is more material based which somehow
dominates our daily lifestyle. These contemporary shapes which I think most of us would be able
to relate to our domestic life such as tissue roll, coffee maker, hairdryer, laptop, mobile phone,
etc. along with some images of plants in pots. Nature as part of my daily life is getting limited to
the plants in pots. Working with the Gond-style images made me gradually realize how a
historical folk-art can travel far, both in terms of distance and time. I experienced how a
childhood reference can suddenly pops up in a strange and foreign atmosphere and a totally
different world, and also how this fact affects the character of my images being primarily
influenced by Gond art.
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