Gulammohammed Sheikh

Gulammohammed Sheikh studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda (M.A. Fine, 1961), and the Royal College of Art in London (M.A. 1966). He taught art history and painting at Baroda for about thirty years until 1993. In addition to painting and teaching, his career has included numerous publications in art history and criticism and in poetry and prose. His work has been exhibited widely in India and abroad. Sheikh has been instrumental in initiating and theorizing the Narrative-Figurative tendency in contemporary art. His early work may be seen as an investigation of the subliminal reaches of human existence. His work from the 1960s and 1970s elaborated on the existence of the surreal in the seemingly mundane. Sheikh discovered a picture postcard of the Ebstorf Mappamundi (a map of the world made in 13th century Europe, now lost) a couple of years ago, which triggered a desire in him to make painted maps. At a workshop at Artunderground, a gallery devoted to digital art based in Baroda, Sheikh learned how to implant sites of his choice into the circuits laid out in the Ebstorf Mappamundi, thus inventing a new map.