1930-2000 Rajasthan India

 

Vyakul (meaning "the excited one" in sanskrit) was born in 1930, in a village of Rajasthan, India. His family was brahmanee and moved soon to Jaipur, the nearby capital town of the State. He begins painting very young. He is then mainly enticed by colors.

 

Still very young, he begins collecting worship or magical devices, and all sorts of "curios". He shares his life between this two callings. One is overt, makes him known and acknowledged through the whole country: he soon sets up a museum to display it, which will grow into the biggest private institution. The other calling is clandestine: he paints since his earliest years, this is his hidden passion. His first works in the "tantra-folk" style and then, in the early sixties, he finds his own way.

 

Strange artist. To begin with, he has no studio. Works anywhere but always safe from observation. Secretly. And he doesn’t paint daily, far from it, a few times each year and for a few days, when it really "overruns" him, he says, when it "overwhelms" him ; when his eyes "catch fire".

And he knows nothing of paint-shops. He makes his colors himself, grinds plants, stones, clay, cow’s urine, coal, glues, flowers and powders.

 

From Notes about Vyakul by Franck André Jamme, 1993

 

Exibitions:

Magiciens de la Terre, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 1989

Tantra, Frith Street Gallery, London, 1990

Jalyan Gallery, London, 1991 & 1993

Galerie du Jour Agnés B., Paris, 1993

FIAC, Paris 1993 & 1997

Azur, Fondation Cartier, Jouy-en-Josas, 1993

 

Public Collection:

MOMA New York