ABOUT THE LIMITED EDITION GRAPHIC PRINTS/ WRITINGS BOOKS Gogi Saroj Pal and Ved Nayar prepared graphic plates for manually printing, on etching press, two limited edition collectors books. Each limited edition is of 30 books only. Each graphic print in the book is hand printed, signed and numbered by the artist. Each book is also numbered. The graphic print plates are prepared by soft ground and aquatint process. The graphic prints are printed on Somerset satin paper. The size of Gogi’s book is 25cm x 28cm and the size of Ved’s book is 32cm x 45cm. Each book is placed in a specially designed and hand crafted wooden box with a glass window. Ashok Dhawan helped to design the wooden box. The idea for Gogi’s portfolio/book emerged from the letters she wrote to her son when he was a small child and studying in Dehradun. These letters were written from Garhi artists’ studios between 1983 & 1985. As a small child, Punnu played in the lawns of Garhi studios while Gogi worked. He observed Gogi’s paintings and graphic prints while these were being evolved. Sometimes he could not resist asking for clarifications in his ‘totli’ stammering language. Sometimes, sitting by Gogi’s side, he would try to draw or paint. He knew every artist working in Garhi at that time and every artist knew him and pampered him. He would peep into the studios of other artists to talk to them and to observe them paint. In the text part of the letters, Gogi wrote about the paintings and the graphic prints she was making at that time, about the artists in the Garhi, about important exhibitions being held at that time, about various cultures, about historical events of that time and about hard work and commitments to it. On every letter Gogi made a drawing of a painting or a graphic print she was making in Garhi at that time. Punnu kept these letters for safe custody with Gogi’s elder sister. These letters tell about a segment of the formative years of contemporary Indian art. These have been written in the innocence of conveying to a child by a mother, preparing him for this world. These letters have acquired an historical significance. Gogi’s book will have 13 etchings based on the images in the letters and 22 impressions of text in the letters. Ved’s book/portfolio will contain 12 etchings of the drawings which he did during the sculptors’ camp, ‘Uttarayan’, in March 98 in Vadodara and 12 impressions of his creative writings and his writings on Art. Ved explains his concept of his creative visual imagery ... “Programmed in me, I carry compulsions of my cultural identity. I am an aggregate of my local, regional and global consciousness. I am placed in this changing world about to enter 21st century. Man is going to crowd the world with assembly line produced products. Man has become a suspect of destroying environment and our cohabitants on earth. He has enlarged himself beyond this planet and is extending his reach in the universe. Man will change the world from natural material work accessories’ world to biological/genetic work specific accessories’ world. He will rehabilitate other planets with these engineered work specific accessories and start living there by modifying himself. Man has started imagining to master the universe. He is dreaming of immortality amidst planets. Electronics media is becoming a super power and is taking control of our physical, intellectual and emotional responses. It is churning our cultural identities. It is influencing our needs and choices. Through the advertisements and the programs inserted in-between the advertisements, T.V is researching, recreating and inventing ‘Icons’, as representatives of our time, life, desires, dreams and emotions. Celebrity has emerged as the most powerful and influential icon. One among many types of celebrity icons which are occupying TV screens is the supermodel in various forms of presentations. For many years an ‘Icon’, an elongated human from, most of the times a female, has been evolving to take the centre stage in my creative visual imagery in my paintings and in my sculptures. This icon resembles super model in content and thought process. Its reach is from earth to heaven. It dwells amidst planets, presuming immortality, surrounded by the assembly line produced products’ icons, icons of vanishing cohabitants of this planet and the icons which I drive from my cultural inheritance to accomplish my creative visual expression in my painting.”