The last woman Kurumba tribal artist
Making paint from plants in the forest, Kalpana captures the stories of her people with each brush stroke. As the last woman of the five artists of her tribe left, she’s desperate to keep her art and culture from fading away. Here is Kalpana Balasubramanian’s story in her own words.
I was in class nine when I started to pay close attention to my father – an artist who’s been painting for more than 24 years. I’d watch him paint our culture on a piece of canvas for hours at a time.
He would paint such perfect strokes. I remember asking him, “How do you paint the fruits and the vegetables to look so real?” And he said, “You just see them, then feel intensely about painting them as they are. When you pick up that brush and make sharp strokes, you know what your mind wants. You can do this.”
My mother was never involved in my painting. She would say I painted all the time and never did any housework. But she was mostly jovial and very supportive.
When I started painting as a teenager, I painted elephants and many other animals. Sometimes, I drew huts, brooms and other things that were part of my community – the Kurumba tribal community’s – everyday life. I started putting all these in the painting, understanding the life my ancestors lived. We tell the story of our people through our art.
My father was a master storyteller. He told me that each painting tells a story of our culture. The weddings, the funerals, the celebrations, the prayers to our guardian deity – everything was painted in the canvas.
Right now, I’m the only woman Kurumba tribal artist. There are five other artists, but they’re all men. This art is my pride. And I want more people to know about it, because this culture shouldn’t disappear. We use only natural colours from plants in our paintings. I want people to know that too. But the biggest challenge is finding young people in our community who want to paint. I’ve taught nearly 30 kids how to paint and create our art, but very few have dedicated any time to it. A lot of them become labourers and only learn to paint as a part time thing.
I’ve done bookmarks, greeting cards and hundreds of Kurumba paintings on walls, including railway stations. Right now, I’m selling my art through NGOs, but I want to be known well enough to take direct orders. I don’t want to be known as just another tribal girl. I’m more than that. I want to be known as a Kurumba tribal artist. And I want to rope in more young people from my community, so we can prevent this art from dying.
Reporting by Sharada Balasubramanian, a freelance journalist based at Coimbatore.