TRIFED's Aadi Chitra exhibition series comes to Chennai

Chennai: The endless charm of the country’s age-old tribal art will be in splendid display for a week in Chennai, as TRIFED’s Aadi Chitra exhibition will start in the city on Monday.

The aim of the series, which began with a stopover in Bangalore recently and is now being held in Ahmedabad, aims to not only boost the earnings of tribal artistes, but bring their heritage-value paintings from oblivion to the mainstream of art, according to top officials with Trifed (Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Ltd), which functions under the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs.

The Chennai edition, which concludes on October 21, will be held at the Lalit Kala Akademi on Greams Road. It will be inaugurated by Sheela Rani Chunkath, Additional Chief Secretary and Chairperson and Managing Director of Tamilnadu Handicrafts Development Corporation Ltd, senior TRIFED officials informed at a press conference here today.

A. Joseph Raj, Chairman and Managing Director of Oceanic Edibles International Ltd, will be guest of honour. Jiji Thomson, Managing Director of the Delhi-headquartered TRIFED, would be present on the occasion.

The paintings put up for sale present the creative expressions of about 40 tribal artists. They belong to the tribes of Gond, Bhil (both central India), Rathwa (Gujarat), Saura (Orissa) and Warli (Maharashtra).

The first in the 2012-13 series of nine exhibitions began in the Karnataka capital on September 28, and concluded October 4. The ongoing exhibition in Ahmedbad, which started on October 10, will end on October 17. The last leg in the series will conclude on February 28, at Goa, after hosting shows in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Hyderabad.

“The idea is to not just restore and reinforce India’s age-old tribal arts, but also project the relevance of their age-old flavour in today’s scenario without effecting any dilution,” Jiji Thomson, Managing Director of TRIFED which is currently celebrating its 25th year, had said in Delhi recently.

TRIFED expects sales worth Rs 10 lakh from each venue on an average, reveals Ms. Mamta Sharma, Senior Manager (Marketing Development), TRIFED, which has a chain of 29 showrooms called Tribes India across the country. As recently as last week, TRIFED opened two showrooms in southern India — at Kanyakumari and Kovalam.

The themes at the Chennai exhibition will range from religious to secular, from gods and goddesses to animals and birds, lifecycles from birth, death, marriage, farming, harvest, celebration, and the five basic elements of Mother Earth, pointed out Mr. V. Ramanathan, TRIFED Regional Manager (South). The subjects are presented with immaculate precision. The purity and unadulterated love of tribals for the nature evolves into a unique style that reflects their history and culture.

Among the well-known tribal artistes at the exhibition series are Nankushia Shyam and Japani (respectively the wife and daughter of the legendary Gond painter Jangarh Singh Shyam), Paresh Rathwa (Pithora style), Rameshwar Munda (Saura) and Jivya Soma Mashe (Warli).

The next city in the series will be in Hyderabad (October 22-30, State Gallery of Fine Arts), Delhi (November 3-11, Kendra Art Gallery), Mumbai (December 22-28 at Nehru Centre, Worli and December 28-January 3 at Prince of Wales Museum, Fort) and Goa (February 12-15, Kala Kendra), according to M. Bhav Singh, Deputy General Manager, Trifed. The Kochi leg of the series was held earlier this summer as part of the Santhigiri Festival in southern Kerala in May.