Canvas On The Fence

Synopsis

The film centers on the relationship between six artists Saudagar Abdul Gani, Rajesh Karpe, Swaroop Kaintura, Dharampal, Hanif Mohammed Qureshi and Ganraj Choudhary and the street outside Jehangir Art Gallery. These artists have different personalities, ages, and temperaments. The film tries to capture the relationship among themselves and their collective idea of art and street. Though the film looks at them as a group, it also tries to capture their pieces of individual personalities and attempts to weave them into one fabric.

The film uses an observational style to structure the narrative. It includes informal interviews with the artists present on the street. The interviews and observations combine together to form a narrative structure that portrays the artists’ everyday lives, their challenges and their personal ideas about their art and space.

Background Note

Kala Ghoda is known as the art district of South Bombay, surrounded by Jehangir Art Gallery, National Gallery of Modern Arts and many other prestigious art galleries. There lies a street outside Jehangir Art Gallery, known as Art Circle. This street owes its name to the local artists who have been there for over two decades now. The film is centered on the artists who sit around the named Art Plaza, a street circling the famous Jehangir Art Gallery around Kala Ghoda, Mumbai We chose this location because it turns out to be an important locus of art- both historically and geographically. The presence of the gallery in itself provides a nice contrast to the space and the street in focus. Most of the artists have been using this street for almost twenty years now for their art and business. It has become an intricate part of all of their lives. They all come from humble backgrounds and have meaningful stories to share.

Their experience of art, of the street and of life itself has been tried to be captured in the film. Through the film, we are trying to work on the dynamics of the open public spaces such as streets and with the art that is available in such spaces. By art, we are specifically trying to look at painters, portrait makers and other artists who use paper as their medium. The film is conceptualized to look at the contribution of a space to the art of the artists and also to acknowledge their contribution to space itself.

This film attempts to blur the lines between art on the street which is usually seen as ‘low art’ or local art that are less of value and the art that finds its place in prestigious galleries such as Jehangir. The film also tries to understand the space that the artists in focus occupy and why do they find it worthy of a place to showcase their art. The film also aims in bringing the audiences closer to the lives of these artists that bring life to that street through their work. It was also interesting to see the artists’ perspectives about the space, the street and their own idea about open spaces. The filmmakers chose to look at streets from the narratives of these artists because they have managed to make a space of their own in the midst of one of the most important centers for art in India and it is thus of significance that we document their stories and their ideas about life, work, and art.