Roots and wings

Gyaltsen,who descends from a holy Tibetan clan,has shown at group shows in Kolkata and Delhi. Her works are also part of collector Priya Pauls collection. The one she shows us is an installation made of safety pins,colourful PVC pipes,lights and an earthen globe. A white sheet is draped at the bottom with tree roots painted on it. My vision of art is not restricted to a specific culture,it can only grow outwards to a more global statement. Im interested in the struggle between humankind and nature and the delicate links and bonds we form as a global community, she says. In Sikkim,the awareness of modern art is limited and Im driven to make art more accessible and playful, says Gyaltsen. At the 2008 Nandan Art Mela held in Kolkata,she invited people to paint lying down,like Michelangelo, or with a big long brush,Like action painter Jackson Pollock.

To pin Minam Apang,30,down to a particular state,would not be fair to the artist. She moved from her home in Arunachal Pradesh to Illinois,on a scholarship to study at Elmherst College. She relocated to Mumbai and did her Masters at the J J School of Art. She has set up a studio in Bangalore,which doesnt mean much,given that her next solo is at the 2010 Hong Kong Art Fair.

Her jet-setting image aside,Apang has tapped her roots for her art. The point of departure for my first solo War with the Stars at Chatterjee and Lal,Mumbai,in 2008 was a myth re-told by Verrier Elwin in Myths from the North East India. It is a tale of betrayal and revenge,told through the tale of the otter,the bat and the fish, she says. Her more recent work talks of her family. A set of line drawings done during a workshop in Art Space in Tokyo,Hill Side Stories,refers to landscapes from her home. Apang too doesnt like direct references. Even the text I weave into my recent works is not accessible. My tribe has a strictly oral culture and I try to draw that out through the metaphor of overwriting tales. Its a less spontaneous process than what I did for my earlier shows, she says.

Thirty-year-old Sandeep Jindung Kingson was born in a small town in Assam,but calls Shillong home. He began with painting portraits of his homeland,his mother,family and himself. At one time,I was very depressed and it showed in all my work. My canvases were blue-toned,Shillong appeared in the backdrop like a fairy land I missed. My mother waited for me to return and choose a bride, says Kingson. His realist rendering of his mother waiting with a jug of rice wine and a betel leaf by her side is melancholic and moving. I had suffered a terrible break-up and my close friend had committed suicide. I often had to force myself to paint, he says. One day,I dreamt I was in a green field dwarfed by giant multi-coloured trees. I broke out of my depression, he says.

Kingsons canvases now explode with green and one such work was nominated for the Lalit Kala Award. I am now positive about my life,drawing on the energy of local crops like the pumpkin,bamboo and banana and celebrating local games like guli danda and marbles, he says with a chuckle. After finishing his MA in painting,Kingson intends to settle in Delhi,where his work has been displayed at group shows. My home town is important and I return periodically,but the city is where my art will grow, he says.

One graphic novel old and working on her next projecta childrens comic-adaptation of stories from Kokrajhar,Assam Parismita Singh,30,says she would rather not make culture-specific readings into her work: I write,I have my political opinions,these may emerge in my work, says Singh. Her debut,Hotel at the End of the World,was a journey into the heart of darkness of four characters whose lives are lifted by moments of magic and myth. Her next work,she says,will subvert ethnographic notions of what it means to be Typical Assamese.

The folklore and the customs of the Adi tribe is the inspiration for Ajoy Bhattacharjee,a 28-year-old sculptor of mixed origins,who moved from Arunachal Pradesh to Delhi to study art. Our culture is disappearing and our myths and folklore are dubbed superstitions,but if we do not respect the tree god,the sun god,the moon goddess,we will just destroy our planet, he says. Bhattacharjees work reflects his ecological concerns. On a tree branch covered in a local weaved fabric,Bhattacharjee has attached the large metal handrails of the Delhi Metro. In another work,a headless yogi meditates,tapping the kriya inside his body,while a third sculpture titled

I am Indian is a beaten face of an old wise man,whose slanted eyes and woolly hair place him as a native of the Northeast. We are tired of being called Chinese or Japanese and seen as people who come from outside. My work wants to expose this hypocrisy,while celebrating our identity as people and artists who contribute to the Indian economy, he says.
Their angst and passion is clearly leading these young artists toward a nuanced identity.