Ram Pratap Verma

Ram Partap Verma was born in 1957 and brought up in a very small town namely Bhiwani in Haryana India. Bhiwani The City which is well known as Chhoti Kanshi of Haryana. The town where innovative information hardly reaches because of narrowness of thoughts and conventional society. He had scuffled a...

Ram Partap Verma was born in 1957 and brought up in a very small town namely Bhiwani in Haryana India. Bhiwani The City which is well known as Chhoti Kanshi of Haryana. The town where innovative information hardly reaches because of narrowness of thoughts and conventional society. He had scuffled a lot to bail out of this darkness because the path he had to choose was not very clear and foggy. So in these circumstances his formal and appropriate training in art took several years.
Art was all around him but he did not identify it as art because of the actual knowledge of art and it was the way of life around him. His mother use to decorate the wall of the home with wall painting made from clay and natural colors. He grew up with the paintings of Gogga Peer, Gangore and other festivals . She would make monkey rattles and shapes of cloth in to camels and horses with which he and his friends played. Those are still in his possession as a collection.
As a student of class IV in the local school, he drew diagram of four earthen pitchers placed on each other to filter water was in school syllabus of science as how pure or filter water. This was something he did at home or outside daily. Bhiwani was known as ‘Chhoti Kanshi because of the numerous temples. The city was blessed with art and architecture, Havelis which offered many exciting paintings of peacocks, Camels, Elephant, Gods and Goddesses, Wrestlers etc. literally thronged the streets and homes. The Havellis had interesting architecture. He loved to draw images of Peacocks and Horses besides the landscapes, he was very much encouraged in the school he studied. After passing high School, He apprenticed himself to a signboard painter who could paint the alphabets but required someone to do the images. He used to draw the portraits of Mahatma Gandhi, Hema Malini and Rajesh Khanna as per the requirement of signage. At this time he came into contact with traditional wall painters, weavers and block printers, who did wonderful work using pigments and natural dyes, which still preserves the two wall paintings he made there. The quality of that natural colors and pigments was because of the city Bhiwani is situated on border of Rajasthan which full of wall murals and culture of traditional art. The value of that practice was realized by him now as he still use that pigments like India red and pilee pevadi (Yellow) made from pigments.

He took formal training as an Art and Craft Teacher Training from Gurgaon in 1978. This period of training at Gurgaon nurtured him about the creativity because of his frequent visits to Art Galleries at New Delhi. After finishing the training he came back to his home town Bhiwani and started teaching art in school. But his search and hunger was else which was in his soul. There he came in contact with some local poets, dramatists and painters and they formed a group called ‘Kala Munch’. They performed plays and discussed contemporary art. Once this group participated in play competition held at Gaity Theater Shimla. On the way they had a round of Art College at Chandigarh. He was so much inspired to see the young budding artists doing lots of creativity. This was the turning point in his life and he left the job and joined Art College Chandigarh as student and pass out in Applied Art discipline in 1986. It is important to mention here that the little knowledge which was prevailing before BFA also dented while taking admission in Applied Art because in fact he wanted to be a painter but no one was in his contact who could explain the various disciplines of art.

After completing BFA in 1986 he joined as Commercial Artist with Haryana Sahitya Akademi to fulfill his daily needs and there he worked till 1990. There the working time was full day morning to evening which he hardly spare time for painting. To pursue his passion for painting he accepted the job of teacher in Fine Arts in Education Department of Chandigarh Administration in 1990. It is significant that even struggling for livelihood he continued painting but not at that pace on which it should be. He hold many solo and group shows but the real impact comes only if one do it as full time which is little difficult in the scenario of India.

His actual journey took pace from his show invisible to visible at Mumbai which is continue till date by giving shape to his vision in art. His subjects were Hypocrisy, Existence of peace of mind, Tae Diplomacy. Through tea diplomacy he portrayed the present face of the society in which people using each other’s by way of obliging or with selfish motive. It is in the backdrop that he comes to his present works which deals with the contemporary world without being narrative. The rhythm of the line and the mystery of the figurative forms excite him very much and these get translated in compositions on paper and canvas. Horses which were his passion in adolescence stay with him as symbols of power in juxtaposing with human form. Of late umbrellas and arrows have intervened into his art perhaps suggesting shelter and communication in the present. Presently he is dealing with commercialization of thoughts, Relations, devaluation with fast life. Art is long and time is fleeing, he really does not know what path his work will take. The journey from invisible to visible has started and he will reach somewhere sometime. He tried all medium but relish only Oil pigments on canvas.