Umakant Kanade

A utopian world, impregnable and perfect set in a tranquil jungle, Umakant Kanade meticulously creates this world unharmed by the chaos of material desire with just a crow quill and ink. His self-imagined compositions bring alive the sanctity and sacredness of each rock or bird that he portrays through minute strokes. With the landscape predominantly black and white, he shrewdly highlights the heart of his paintings that are usually birds or flowers in bright, exploding colours giving them great emphasis. Umakant Kanade is among a handful of fine artists in the country to create art with a crow quill, a tool he learnt to use while inking those delightful comics we were exposed to like Amar Chitra Katha. Developed more than a century ago, the crow quill was known to be a flexible pen that was once used by draftsmen and lithographers. Umakant's works are intricate in form and they reveal the finesse that the quill is capable of producing when fashioned by his imagery.