Ramgopal Kumawat employs his interpretation of Rajasthani katputli puppets to comment on social hierarchies and the games people play
Kumawat creates visual puns by juxtaposing these puppets against everyday objects like a ceremonial rifle or a vintage car.
Despite their lively and delightful forms, the novelty of traditional puppet shows has clearly worn off over the years with other forms of entertainment taking precedence. Paying tribute to the puppets and the puppeteers, Kumawat through his works revisits his roots in Rajasthan as this subject still tugs at his heartstrings.
Kumawat uses the very interesting technique of the mouth spray to create perspective, depth and transparency in his work. He prefers using this to a hand spray as the suspense of the process is retained when he does this as opposed to the hand spray where the colours and texture do not turn out as light and transparent as he requires.
His earlier works depicted flat mono-toned backgrounds but in his recent works he creates the look and feel of different textiles to support the imagery in the foreground. On can also notice that Kumawat’s works come with a ready painted frame: he paints a border to hold as a frame to his work. This is probably because he was trained to be a printmaker and leaving a blank margin around their graphic prints is what printmakers do.