Blurb: Her cartoons never hurt. Instead they bring out the humour in each subject.
Published in Weekend supplement of The New Indian Express, Coimbatore edition, dated 6 October, 2007
By Francis P Barclay
Four baffled little pups line up in the first frame. Puzzled looks centre on their spooky faces, as their gobs are fastened with red scarfs. The caption says ‘SH-SH-SH SILENCE.’ Laughing starts there and goes on and on till the last frame as you stop at each tickling art work in between. A broad-eared Gandhi frowns, Ganesha plays flute with his nose, while his playful rat competes with him nearby. Another upbeat Ganesha hops about on the next frame. A ‘non-stop storyteller’ keeps yacking on. Enlivened egg shells feature with eyes and nose. Then, vegetables and fruits .... Swapna Bafna’s cartoons and caricatures leave you in stitches. A student of the Lalit Kalakshetra and an aspiring cartoon animator pursuing Mass Communication, she says, at times, cartooning is fluky. ``Often, when I sit to draw someone, it would end up in a `cartoon'. Why shouldn't I cherish it,'' a blithe Swapna asked herself, and thus came her maiden exhibition on cartoons and caricatures, `Myriad,' under way at Jayam's Hall on the Race Course Road in Coimbatore. As the name suggests, the exhibition features a plethora of art works tried out with different motifs and media. Sachin, Kapil, the Big B, Amir, RK Narayan…everybody is there at the exhibition in satirical depiction. And every cartoon is special to her. Though a novice in cartooning, her fast strokes show maturity.Swapna, 21, who also teaches multimedia at a city-based college, has an extraneous feeling about whatever she sees. The best way to express those humorous feelings is cartoons, says she. The fervour for drawing cartoons has always been in her. But not until the characters of Disney's Finding Nemo inspired her, she took up cartooning seriously. A cartoon work with the characters of Finding Nemo is also on display at the exhibition.``I don't want to hurt or make anybody sad through my art works. It's the other way: I want to bring out the humour in everybody. I avoid politics in my cartoons,'' she says. Swapna draws her inspirations from whomever she encounters and finds amusing. She studies their facial proportions and does an instant portrait. She works on a single subject time and again, before taking it to the canvas.Cartooning seems a hard row even for the dab hands in art. Swapna agrees. But anyone can master the art through steady practice, she says. The exhibition has a collection of 40-odd hangings, from bitty stock cartoons to the flashy caricatures of personalities and she is ready to explain the nuances of this art.``To bring out humour through cartoons is an arduous task. One needs passion and creativity. I found them in abundance with Swapna and that's why I suggested her to take a plunge,'' said Raviraj, director of the Kalakshetra, where she had been learning cartooning for the past two years.``When it comes to cartooning, the medium isn't important. I have tried every medium to limn my cartoons,'' she says. Her collection includes waters, oil, acrylic, glass paint and transparent photo colours too. For her cartoon on Gandhi, she has employed cross-hatching method with pen. She has also ventured painting on sand. On display at the exhibition is one such painting, which has the Seven Wonders of the World portrayed.Swapna attributes her success to her family and Lalit Kalakshetra.To make the exhibition more interactive, Swapna has provided a set of simple expressions with eyes, nose and mouth, which the visitors can try out. ``It's easy,'' she says. The exhibition will be on till Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. For further information call 0422-4368902 or 9842014569.
