Jai Zharotia (1945–2021) was an Indian painter, sculptor, poet, printmaker and ceramicist, born in New Delhi in 1945 into a humble craftsman family that lived life with simplicity. A self-driven struggle and a sensitive nature pushed him towards literary and artistic pursuits. A believer in destiny, Jai felt his life had been shaped by forces beyond his control. His works celebrate his aspirations, his dreams and his empathy for the world.
Early life
He was born into an impoverished family, to his father, Kundan Lal, and his mother, Nando Devi. Before his birth, the family had migrated to Delhi from Bharatpur to escape the atrocities of the British army. His father was a very talented construction worker, known among his peers for his structural acumen. Sustenance was the central issue in those days. His mother ran the home and equally supported her husband by selling vegetables and groceries. Jai supported the family from a very young age, helping his mother fetch vegetables from the wholesale market every morning, and occasionally doing odd jobs such as ironing clothes and selling magazines.
Becoming an artist
From his early days he was a distinctive child, never satisfied with himself. He began with calendar art, painting gods and goddesses with great mysticism, always eager to conceive something new and explore the unknown. Later he worked as a hoarding painter, travelling to different parts of the country to paint. To be sure of his vocation, he reinforced it by studying for a Diploma in Fine Arts. His evolution as an artist was gradual: he trained himself in painting and earned a Diploma in Art in 1967–71.
He was constantly trying to unwrap something or other, experimenting as if on an eternal quest to find the indescribable, deeply rooted in his inner cosmos. It was as if there were layers veiled underneath, and he had to peel them away one by one. His disposition was so curious that he once took some money from home to buy apparatus for unusual science experiments. The struggles of daily life compelled him to take steps that brought unexpected changes, and this grew into a visual vocabulary that goes beyond reality into indefinite realms of consciousness.
Artist and teacher
Jai was noticed by Roshen Alkazi in early 1970, when he exhibited at Kunika Chemould Gallery and the Black Partridge Gallery. He held his most important solo show at Art Heritage before joining the College of Art, Delhi, as a lecturer in Painting in 1974. As an artist-teacher he was relaxed and least dogmatic, wanting students to discover their creativity for themselves. He worked in his studio at the college so that students could gain from watching him; he could demonstrate many art techniques and was never confined to a single style or theme.
A man committed to his calling, Jai never saw art as a means of earning a livelihood. He was never sure that viewers would easily take to works that reflect a subjective world and individual emotional states. Teaching gave him a stable income while he painted what he wished to paint. His journey, as an artist who struggled to stay above the poverty line while striving for recognition and artistic success, was extraordinary. He remained rooted in his tradition and culture while experimenting with a modernist approach to art-making.
The later years
His voyage explores deep metaphysical questions of existence, yet stays close to his personal history. After he retired as a Professor from the College of Art, New Delhi, this progression became more intense. He immersed himself in the spectacle of space, form and colour, overwhelmed by his quest for the unknown, meticulously seeking a state of oneness between his work, himself and the anonymous.
“Instead of using a straightforward narrative, I’m more interested in creating a universal language of symbols that transcend the personal. The floating boat, for example, rocks through the rough waters and produces swirling water, becoming a symbol of the instability of life, which is always in a constant state of flow. The man indicates satisfaction, the denial of the mundane in life, or the search for new horizons.”
Jai Zharotia