Musee Mattise, and a painted museum-quality lehenga

Time of India

12-06-2025

Critic and Curator Uma Nair has been writing for the past 35 years on art and culture She has written as critic for Times of India and Economic Times. She believes that art is a progressive sojourn. She learnt by looking at the best shows in Washington D.C. and New York. As author her most important books are Reverie with Raza and Meditations on Trees by Ompal Sansanwal. LESS ... MORE
Jayasri Burman, India's legendary woman artist who celebrates the fertility of the universe within, in her works, has over 40 years, created a vocabulary that journeys through various environments that encourage or require stillness. From fertile ponds and waters and riverine flows to many a lotus leafed oasis that captures depth and gravitas within feminine fervour, here is art born of mythos and Bengali literature.
More than a garment
Her painted lehenga for Radhika Ambani's aashirwad was more than a wonder and today it reaffirms the interdependence of man and nature. Aesthetic beauty, meaningfulness and multiple references all come together in this epic creation. Styled by the brilliant Abu and Sandeep, this lehenga proved to be more than a garment. Distilled in the prism of a man and woman union, it is the study of a universe that is filled with realms that resemble a sacred ritual, a time for pause in a world that has forgotten how to nurture pause, a balm in the frenzied pace of our urban and digital lives.
Root memories
It also reminds us of the great story of the vineyard of Aeolus. In the story it is said that the earth has memory, like the vine. For us humans, it is a question of synchronising this root memory and that of the soils . In addition, the vines must respect the earth. Within the tapestry of imagery created on this lehenga that was a fruit of 16 hours every day for 30 days, the entire ensemble echoes the story of root memories born through the crucible of experiences but harnessed through an odyssey of personal explorations of Prakriti (nature) that she considers her backdrop for all her narratives.
Musee Matisse at Nice
In her odyssey of the lehenga, Jayasri says she was in South of France when the call came through at the Matisse Museum in Nice. She was enchanted by the different works in the chapel related to the museum. It has important works linked with the Vence Chapel: 13 maquettes for chasubles and vestments, 3 maquettes for the chapel, 2 studies for La Jérusalem céleste stained glass window and a maquette for Les Abeilles, 2 large drawings representing St. Dominic. The large drawings of the priest St Dominic impressed Jayasri the most.
She says it inspired her to do the same for this lehenga as she flew back to India. Jayasri's evolution over the years has reflected her love for Indian cultural heritage, and the legacy of our textiles, and she wanted to reproduce her artistic sojourn like Matisse on this precious Indian garment.
Jayasri says, Radhika said she wanted to hang the lehenga on her walls someday, so the medium had to be a long-lasting choice. She got a canvas that would flow like a cloth and that's how it was decided it would be an Italian canvas.
Light and landscape
Light and landscapes in rich tones within the tenor of a fertile and vibrant universe is Jayasrii's leitmotif. Like Matisse, Jayasri has developed a distinctive style characterized by strong colours, simplified forms, and a focus on capturing the essence of the environment. Within her universe of flora and fauna, the little ducks the lotus blooms and botanical brilliance; we see the intensity of the play of light as well as nature's essence as her constant inspiration.
Mounting Mood magenta
This is not a fabular tale but a real story of a union of two individuals who are distinctive. Anant Ambani's love for animals is seen in the landscape so deftly created with charismatic contours and expression. Jayasri says she cut 12 canvas pieces, mounted them on a ply board, and began her painting after creating the background contours with her pens. Her palette moved into a moody magenta , a tone she had encountered in previous engagements with the family.
Within the medley of mood and colour we note that Jayasri interweaves moments of emotion with artistic flair — all stamped with a hidden, magical signature of the feminine form.
Lehenga as a relic
This lehenga will be a relic in the pages of contemporary art and couture history in India as well as the world. It reflects Jayasri's search for subjects and thematic ideologies in the framing of feminine forms and nature. It reminds us of the connection between humans and Earth transitions that lead to inviting conservation and human intervention for preservation of Prakriti.
Years ago when she came to Delhi in the 1990s at her first solo at Gallerie Ganesha, Jayasri said: ' In my life, creativity has been the most important thing because creativity to me is freedom.'
Now so many years hence, a year after she finished creating this dramatic lehenga she says: ' Creativity is a beautiful way of living life because you can create your own style in a different manner. It is not only about art, it is about life, about people, about everything. Creativity for me is endless. Creativity allows me to appreciate different cultures, different hearts and learn from great Indian as well as European Masters. And it also allows me to have knowledge about the impact of my own work. And that's where my inspiration for painting comes from.'
This delicately created lehenga in a subtle way states that nature is the glue that holds us together and unravels its secrets in the sifting of light from the mood edits of darkness and springing works that delight the mind's eye. Indeed when hung on a wall it will be more than a mere decorative backdrop. The composition of the vivid and surreal paintings drawn from Indian spirituality and life, with the emotional charge of the work, rendered within each meticulously created form is about matrimony and memories pressed between the pages of our minds.
(IMAGES :JAYASRI BURMAN STUDIO)
Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author's own.