Uses talent to bring laurels to her hometown
Jamshedpur, July 3: Jamshedpur-born Jyoti C Singh Deo is an artist extraordinaire. One can find her bent over her knees for hours, holding sheets of drawings and coal scattered around. With the fans switched off, she wipes her brow, stops for a minute, and looks at her work. If she smiles, you know her work is shaping up just the way she had planned.
Born and brought up in Steel City, Jyoti is a Bangalore-based artist. Her art celebrates the raw form of coal. She did her initial schooling at Sacred Heart Convent. Today she is among the few artists in the country that uses coal for her artwork, a rare feat indeed.
” Coal has been a part of my life. I hailed from Jamshedpur and Jharkhand, which are rich in mines and minerals. I draw inspiration from it. Over the years, I travelled extensively to the coal belts of Dhanbad, Bermo, Ramgarh, Hazaribagh and various other places around. As an artist, I feel indebted to Earth’s magnanimity to bestow us with riches and strongly endorse the protection of this mineral and of our Earth,” said Jyoti, speaking over the phone from Bangalore.
She has translated stories of coal mines and the life around it into paintings and installations. Her paintings have a large essence of light and shadow, and she plays with shades of black, inspired by coal and its landscape. Her works are an expression of colours and mediums as she delves into the rich experiences of her life to weave stories at various art galleries in Bangalore and elsewhere in the country.
“I started painting at a very young age. It wasn’t long when I found myself. I started dabbing my hands with paints, there was no going back. It taught me not only to trust my gut, but also to have immense patience. It’s challenging and satisfying. I started experimenting with colours, but my heart and soul got struck with coal,” said Jyoti, with a twinkle in her eye.
She has travelled extensively across the country too. She has taught in various schools and colleges. She was a journalist for a few years and that helped her to conceptualise her story telling on canvas. Her work has been displayed in homes and offices in India, as well as in Dubai, the United States, and the United Kingdom, to name a few.
Recently, her solo art exhibition titled COAL’I’FIED was organised at Karnataka ChitraKala Parishath from 17 to 20 June. Jyoti explores each piece/block of coal as an inspiration as it is extremely unique. Every piece of coal has a story to tell. They seem like artefacts waiting to be showcased. The fact that every piece has been touched by the human hand makes it even more valuable. It is almost tragic that in a colourful world, there are places where people breathe, eat and sleep the colour black.
Her artwork brings out the conditions that affect people’s health in the vicinity of coalfields as coal dust enters their bodies. Labourers do not have proper safety conditions, not even the basic footwear. The weather adds to the woes of the workers in coalfields due to the scorching summer temperatures, including the under layers of coal where the fire burns, and yet, people living there refuse to move out.
