Naresh Kumar

Relation Between Black and Blood

Relation between Black and Blood by Naresh Kumar explores the connection between performance, installation, and representation. The artist’s use of watercolor is inherited from Mughal miniature painters who migrated from Delhi to the East India Company on the Ganges for the opium trade. The Miniaturists used cheaply available transparent Mica to paint images of the water carrier, the cobbler, dancers, prostitutes, wanderers, and god men. These were sold as souvenirs to an international market of visiting officials and were sought for in England as they documented the scenes of Britain’s colony. People traveled through these small watercolors and they became India’s first secular political form of art that depicted the public and not a court scene or an imperial victory. They were called the “Patna Qalam.” In Relation between Black and Blood, a series of 12 pages, Kumar evokes his first visit to Paris as a resident at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris. He regains the tradition of “Patna Qalam” by finding ancient French documents in thrift stores and second-hand book stores. Uprooted vibrantly floating bodies, a bursting moon across the pages, withdrawing into itself; all evokes a journey to the end of the night and the harsh condition of eternal migration. The watercolors pose reflections on identity, movement, and transformation. In talking about everyday life, the artist records daily facts of a past time to construct a colonial archive and undermine its significance and validity today.