yTechniques of Printmaking in visual arts is laborious also time consuming. Even then artists enjoy this process of making prints. Theyhave to think and rethink their thoughts and imagine a mirror image to make a drawing on the zinc plate for etching,wood block for woodcut prints, limestone for litho prints, linoleum sheet forlinocut prints, etc. They cut those drawing lines as sharp or deep cuts withsharp tools, fill the colour and take a print of that on paper. Result is thepositive side of the image. Some of the artists have made this strenuous methodto express aesthetically meaningful art works. One of them is Ms.Padma Reddy.
Padma lives in Hyderabad teaches art for school children, helps her father who is a founder of a Sanskriti school in teaching art to the lower social social status children. She says children have mirror like clear minds and it is fun to work with them. She fulfills her multi tasks teaching, making art as art practitioner, as a wife, mother, daughter and family relations. We experience lot of things in life, good and bad, sour and sweet, some we can express out some may not. She says we can express hidden feelings through visual language of art. Padma retrospect and introspects every feeling before expressing as visuals. Print making process has become the right method for Padma to rethink before making a print and during the process. Thoughts are rethought for a mirror image in printmaking process and this is similar to introspection of the thoughts. This is the pleasure artists on print making.
Her father Sri.B.A.Reddy is an art teacher in the same school where she studied. She had been looking at father’s art at home and school and developed taste in arts and literature, visited art exhibitions, looked at various art methods, took inspiration from meeting various people and tried to understand various mind sets. She enjoys experimenting with the given process of printmaking for different ways and many results. She does not want to adhere to the given conventional processes.
She studied bachelors Degree in Hyderabad JNTU Fine Arts college and Masters in printmaking from Faculty of Fine Arts Baroda. She runs in between her art practice, responsibilities of family and household. She says there is a gender difference everywhere whether it is a private space or public space.
[Original article of this translation is published in Telugu in Sopathi Sunday magazine on 9th December 2018]
Dr.M.Balamani
