The ongoing exhibition ‘Chitralatika’ at Kala Academy is showcasing over 40 paintings of legend Lata Mangeshkar by record holder artist Ramkripal Namdeo
KALYANI JHA | NT BUZZ
In 2014, Ramkripal Namdeo met the legendary songstress Lata Mangeshkar for the first time. And it is an encounter that he will always cherish, one that has profoundly influenced his art since.
“I have been painting since 1985 and started working on a painting of Lataji in 2013,” he shares.
This painting of the Bharat Ratna awardee consists of 299 miniature sketches of her and 630 miniature sketches of other world famous women achievers within it.
When Namdeo showed this painting to Mangeshkar at the June 2014 meeting at her residence, the singer not only appreciated the work but also personally signed it. “Since this personal meeting with her, I decided to only work on her, focusing on her life. While I do sometimes paint on other themes, the maximum number of my artworks is based on her. Till now, I have made over 75 paintings on Lata Mangeshkar,” he shares, adding that when he touched her feet, he felt that he had seen Goddess Saraswati herself. “She asked where I was from, and when I said I was from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, she told me that she is from Indore. But in my mind, she belongs to the whole world,” shares the 61-year-old artist.
This personally signed painting has since made it to the Limca Book of Records 2016 and is part of his ongoing exhibition ‘Chitralatika’ which is currently on at Kala Academy, Panaji. The exhibition which was first displayed in Jabalpur in 2017 has since travelled to various cities around the country like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Ahmedabad. The exhibition showcases 50 oil paintings, of which 40 paintings are centred on Mangeshkar.
Another noteworthy painting in this exhibition, also on the legendary singer, has found its way in the Asia Book of Record and India Book Record in 2019. This is a bigger painting and it took him 10 to 11 months to complete. This painting has the face of Lata Mangeshkar, and in the background also has memories from her life, including meeting with Jawaharlal Nehru, and other famous people.
One of his other paintings has 4,359 faces in it, in which the smallest face is one centimetre and it took eight months to complete.
Having learned the art of painting from Bhagwan Das Patel, the artist shares that the idea of merging one face in different ways came to him some years ago after an exhibition he visited in Bhopal. “I saw a painting of a basket in which if one looks closer one can also see a face of an old lady in it. So this idea of these smaller faces and making up a bigger picture came from that. I have added my own variation in my paintings,” says Namdeo, who also teaches young art enthusiasts at his studio, Bhartiya Kala in Jabalpur.
(‘Chitralatika’ will be on display until February 20)
