I didn’t think I would open the site with this painting. I thought something rather traditional and quiet would be more appropriate for a beginning. But the work kept coming back to me so I decided to go with it. In addition, it’s a very good piece and given India’s own long experience with terrorism not an unusual subject in Mithila art.
A terrorist in black, his signature Mithila eye showing through the mask, straddles the red globe of the earth. He immediately gets our attention and sets the theme of the work. But it is the four smaller terror scenes on the left side of the painting that are the heart of this piece. And what is unusual here is the emotional quality of these scenes – they are not a distanced telling of an act of carnage or murder. Look at the blindfolded soldiers about to be executed while forest animals quietly look on: the grieving wife and mother receiving the body of husband, son: the bus in orange flames, body parts scattered around, a child crying next to her dead mother. The artist creates empathy through these small vignettes of personal tragedy and loss. We suddenly become more than viewers and experience an emotional connection to what we see.
I have seen other Mithila paintings on terrorism but they lack this emotional component. They may be beautifully designed or well drawn but the personal connection is missing and it is this that gives Gunjeshwari Kumari’s work its quiet power.
