2013
Australind
Australind
Making Australind in Naya, Santiniketan, Kanpur.
Australind scroll II Australindopak Archive
Australind follows the scroll Canberra and Other Ideas. It begins in Hunchy, a green valley set in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, Queensland. From Brisbane I travelled to India, spending the first month in Gurgaon. I chronicled walking there and in Old Delhi, as part of following the path of Scottish peripatetic painter William Simpson who painted there in 1859.
From Delhi I went south by train to Baroda, then east to Bengal. For five months I stayed in the tiny village of Naya with Chitrakar artists who practice Patuya Sangit - a tradition of painting and performing scrolls. Every two or three weeks I visited Kolkata or to the university town of Santiniketan to check email and do additional research. These journeys punctuate the time in Naya, where I learned much about Patuya Sangit and the Chitrakars life as storytellers.
Returning to Delhi in November, I stopped in the city of Kanpur to visit the site of a massacre during the Indian Mutiny of 1857. There, beside the quiet waters of the Ganges I spent a day sketching.
Moving on to Delhi, with my scroll almost full, I attended a wedding, spent a time with people living rough under Modi Mill Flyover, and helped solve the mystery of Sarina the runaway maid before catching a bus to Atari-Wagah border and Pakistan.
Click an image above to view Australind scroll II. Australindopak Archive
Australind follows the scroll Canberra and Other Ideas. It begins in Hunchy, a green valley set in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, Queensland. From Brisbane I travelled to India, spending the first month in Gurgaon. I chronicled walking there and in Old Delhi, as part of following the path of Scottish peripatetic painter William Simpson who painted there in 1859.
From Delhi I went south by train to Baroda, then east to Bengal. For five months I stayed in the tiny village of Naya with Chitrakar artists who practice Patuya Sangit - a tradition of painting and performing scrolls. Every two or three weeks I visited Kolkata or to the university town of Santiniketan to check email and do additional research. These journeys punctuate the time in Naya, where I learned much about Patuya Sangit and the Chitrakars life as storytellers.
Returning to Delhi in November, I stopped in the city of Kanpur to visit the site of a massacre during the Indian Mutiny of 1857. There, beside the quiet waters of the Ganges I spent a day sketching.
Moving on to Delhi, with my scroll almost full, I attended a wedding, spent a time with people living rough under Modi Mill Flyover, and helped solve the mystery of Sarina the runaway maid before catching a bus to Atari-Wagah border and Pakistan.
Click an image above to view Australind scroll II. Australindopak Archive
