Click here for detailed pictures of Usha Shastry's Work
Click here for a list of some of the poems painted for the exhibition « Bhaavamaalika – 1 »

An overall view of the work of a contemporary artist
Usha Shastry (Rachakonda)

Original ideas and a fresh approach are the keynotes in the work of this contemporary painter Usha Shastry an Indian based in Paris. In the coming exhibition at the Nehru Centre she will be taking us into a world of vivid impressions inspired by poetry and music, with her technical skills and knowledge of the Indo-Persian miniature style of painting – an art which she acquired in the Fine Arts College of Lucknow University in India.
The artist also sings North Indian classical music studied in Benares University and South Indian ‘Carnatic’ music learnt in Madras. In Paris, she worked on water colour painting and Chinese calligraphy. She also learnt to dance kathak in the Jaipur temple style and is now learning to sing Dhrupad compositions.
Usha has had several successful exhibitions - thanks to this rare combination of traditional skills and creativity - on Tales and Legends from all over the world, and on Traditions of India (in Musée Guimet, Paris, in the French National Museum of Asiatic Arts) with pictures painted in the spirit of oriental miniatures. (see pictuers and critiques reproduced on this website)

There are two other shows in the offing : one in the Cairo National Opera Gallery inspired by Egyptian and Arabic and Persian poetry, and another one of Haiku (Japanese poetry ) also to be painted in the oriental minature style–the venue of which is not fixed yet.
The artist’s subjects are surprisingly modern and new and the treatment unusual. New, when they speak of some tales and legends which have never been painted in the miniature mode, from Grimm’s « Princess and the Pea » ; unusual, when depicting a Sufi Tale from Armenia, modern, when painting Ritual Scenes from Mali ; Old themes are conceived afresh: when the pictures speak of Radha and Krishna but with forms and attitudes as hitherto never visualised before.

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The coming exhibition at the Nehru Centre (Monday, the 8th of Dec. 2003) is called « Bhaavamaalika -1» ( a bouquet or garland of sentiments and moods ) as opposed to the familiar « Raagamaalika » well known in the field of Indian miniature painting. The artist’s creativity is inspired by the content, and the mood of mystic and romantic poems ( the veil between the two is thin ) as sung in Indian music today - an innovation in the sense that
paintings in the miniature style have seldom directly depicted the poetic content of sung compositions or « bandish ».
The coverage of songs as pictured is exceptionnally extensive, including mystic and romantic poetry from different parts of India ( see list of titles of some of the poems inspiring the pictures)* from Kabir, Mir and Surdas to Tyagaraja and Tagore, from Andal and Akkammadevi to Mirabai. The genres of music will move from Rig Veda, to Dhrupad and Khayal, from Mystic Ghazals and Qavvalis to the Lovely Modern Poetry immortalised in Indian Film Music.
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The format is different – bigger than the usual miniature which initially was of a manuscript or book size to be « read » in a way, whereas the paintings of this artist offering new perspectives in different sizes, are meant to be put up on a wall. Quoting a Musée Guimet curator « Her paintings have so much to say, her miniatures should be painted bigger ! » The precious rendering of the characters recall the initial manuscript style, are small in relation to the format but are big enough to show the expressivity of the finely drawn faces - underlining Usha’s talent and miniature knowhow, (see details of some of her pictures) expressions which in very tiny miniatures are hardly perceptible whereby one may miss the point (quoting Usha "I would like people to take the time and enjoy looking at the faces in my pictures").
The artist’s lively pictorial conceptions reveal the originality of her paintings, picturing a variety of situations fitted into an ‘antique’ framework . This compositional liberty was perfectly familar to the artists of the miniature style, a mode which was indeed freely creative - in the past, except for the limitations due to the fact that certain themes were imposed by kings and nobles of the time.

Usha Shastry can be contacted on:
ushataranga@wanadoo.fr
Usha’s work delves into greater depths of emotion, and while guided by the aesthetics of the art of miniature painting, goes much beyond the ‘decorative’ overtones of this idiom, to express her vision which is a very naturally expressive and luminous one. She can put across almost any emotion "Bhava" in the expressions of her characters. The apparent direct simplicity - a deliberate choice - of her work should be construed not as minimal art but rather as a pointed condensed effort to communicate the message of the picture, which reaches straight out to the heart of the viewer.
The artist, Usha Shastry, inventively pursues her ventures into this art world ( a miniature at its best is a small window opening into a beautiful interior garden). Her paintings offer new moods and innovative subjects in a realm of charm and colour, scrupulously avoiding any repetition or copying. The artist seeks for her own intuitive and spontaneous expression of the intimate and the immutable - the mysterious secret link between the artist, the chosen subject and the viewer.
Comments kindly communicated to the artist by Mme. Fannie Anselle, holder of the French National Diploma of Fine Arts « Diplôme National de Beaux Arts » and Ex-Professor of Plastic Arts in government schools and colleges affiliated to the « Ville de Paris » and art critic.