Paper Shadows

“I was always interested in woodcuts by Bengal masters like Haren Das and Satyajit Ray as a child. My dad was a cartoonist,but I didn’t want to follow in his footsteps or live in his shadow,which is why I decided to learn paper cutting from my uncle. At family get-togethers,we would have shadow puppet shows,” says 38-year-old,Kolkata-based,Trina Lahari,whose book of short stories titled Undulating Oratories recently hit the stands. One of the stories,Eyes that Lie,is being made into a film by a Swedish filmmaker.

She began to pursue art seriously in 1995-96. “I used to bunk class and work on large canvases,as paper cutting is a very time consuming art form,” says Lahari,who begins by sketching out the drawing. This is followed by marking out the portions as positive and negative spaces,scanning the image,colouring the black areas in Photoshop and finally cutting out the dark shadows from the print out. The final work is mounted against a white paper. Her works have been showcased at UNESCO and in Poland and China. Inspired by Hans Christian Anderson,she says,“I was part of a memorial show in his name that focussed on stories for children. I did illustrations for fairytales like The Birth Story and Getting a Friend.” She adds,“I don’t have the desire to ask for crores. My art is very patron-driven.” Her works are priced modestly between Rs 2,000-Rs 10,000.