In conversation with Aakshat Sinha
Vandana Bist (born 1963) is an artist, illustrator, and fiction writer. A graduate from the College of Art, Delhi, she began her creative journey in the genre of children's picture book illustration and ventured into various other genres of artistic expression – pen-and-ink abstract drawing, watercolour landscape, abstract watercolour as also writing poetry and fiction. Her inspiration has been “the curious phenomena of human existence”, and the constant flow of even more curious questions and answers that the churning of human relations throws up. Vandana has been working as an illustrator since 1986 for varied genres of writing, with special emphasis on children’s picture books textbooks. She has also done illustrations for magazines, poetry collections, brochures, and related commercial literature. Besides being an artist and illustrator, Vandana is also a proficient writer, and also conducts workshops for children. She is a recipient of many awards, including the Katha Chitrakala Award for the best Illustrator.
Aakshat Sinha: Coming from a family of bureaucrats, how easy or difficult was it for you to choose a career in the visual arts?
Vandana Bist: This was a choice that perhaps destiny had already taken for me and was revealed only when the time came. My childhood and pre-teens and post-teen years were lived as two completely different lives. These would later clash and influence my decision to choose a career in the visual arts. My father was in the civil services. My earliest memories are those of the sixties and seventies, where we lived in large colonial buildings, mostly around the Ridge in old Delhi, with vast rambling gardens and other spaces where we kept cows, chickens, and dogs. For many days in the year, our extended family would stay with us . My brother, older to me by just a year and I were left pretty much to our own selves while my parents fussed over the relatives and the older four siblings. That said, we were loved and looked after just as much. With much time and space for ourselves, we created our own world, full of mystery , make believe and curious timelessness . The trees, the overgrown gardens and the rough stony paths around the houses became places from where we could run away to strange new worlds , meet beings only we could see and hear sounds that no other could.
I was only eight when my father was posted as the district magistrate of Lucknow and we got to live in Kothi Noor Baksh, a colonial style kothi, believed to have been built around the end of the 18th century, by a prominent nawab of Awadh. It was later used as the residence of the British Deputy Commissioner, and post-Independence it became the default residence of the District Magistrate. The kothi was replete with its own history, mysteries, stories, and local lore. It had its private Baradari, and the mazar of the Murshid sacred to the Nawab who built the kothi. The mazar had a common door with our dining room!
While my brother and partner in crime moved on to spend more time in outdoor games , I continued wandering in the gardens, the old baradari, chatting with the malis, durbans and anyone else who would tell me curious tales about the kothi. These further fueled my already fertile imagination. Then, of course, I saw the ghost of the limping Nawab Noor Baksh traversing the dark, mossy and gloomy Baradari, heard the clumsy clatter of shoes of the stupid Englishwoman as she pottered about in the bathroom she had insisted on getting made, even when the locals had warned her that it would be right above the sacred mazar. She apparently fell to her death from the steep stone staircase that led down from her verandah. Of course, I saw her tumbling down! All this and much more.
Somewhere deep inside, my own stories and images were beginning to take shape. The latter would manifest in pen-and-ink drawings, many years later. And then there were the story books I read voraciously, Dame Enid Blyton was my favourite, and the worlds she created became mine something I will never be apologetic about!
The early and the raging teens were spent alternately in Delhi and Lucknow. While the rigours of convent school studies pushed away the timelessness my idyllic days, the country was in the throes of one of the biggest political upheavals post-Independence – the Emergency . It was only natural for our bureaucratic home to reflect that upheaval in our discussions and debates.
School was training me well in writing, debating and I was consistently improving my reading habit. Art was not given importance after middle school, but I did doodle a bit in my textbooks and rough books. By the end of school, it seemed pretty clear to Dad and me that I’d follow in my older brother’s steps. But that was not to be.
For reasons and circumstances that even today I cannot completely make sense of, my mother began to slip slowly into the world of Alzheimer’s. The slide had probably begun sometime when I was in the final two years of school, and by the time I was ready for college, the changes in Mom’s behaviour were perceptible. The diagnosis was a huge shock for Mom and the rest of us. We had to give Mom the special care she needed, and also negotiate the gloom and darkness within ourselves. Each one of us had our own coping mechanisms; for me, it was running back to those happy ,carefree and magical days of childhood that I had tucked away somewhere deep inside. That is when images started coming to me – recreated, resurrected, comforting. With them came words. I began writing and drawing almost every day. It was then I knew this would be my calling quite – far away from the well-constructed and logical career in the services I had once thought of pursuing. I still remember the somewhat disappointed look on my father’s face the day I finally chose College of Art over Miranda College for Women.
AS: You pursued commercial art in college. But rather than follow the usual path of advertising or graphic design, how is it that you got into making illustrations and books?
VB: Because commercial art at that time was mostly about advertising and drawing for words, which suited me. I wanted to write more and draw better. At that time, for me, words and images were organic companions. The divorce came decades later. I spent many years illustrating children’s books because the world of children was still mine to explore and give my bit to. Over the years, as I began writing and publishing adult fiction and poetry with illustrations, I also began drawing for others who wrote adult fiction and poetry. Till 2020 this pretty much was my path in art.
AS: You’ve had a good measure of success as a children’s book illustrator. Why and how did you decide to explore the fine arts? Tell us more about your fascination for watercolours as a medium for your expression.
VB: I really do not see very clear lines separating commercial art and fine art. It is only art with and without words. And when the time came, I felt I’d done enough of the former. This probably happened when Corona invaded the world, and we were caged in our homes. Those were terrifying times – the gloom, the silence, and the unpredictability of the future. I found solace in just sitting at my window and painting what I could see from there – skies, clouds, the ominous quiet of the park and its trees. Words were troublesome. Why watercolours? Because watercolour has always been my preferred medium, even when I was illustrating. I think it’s the gentleness, the mystery and the unpredictability of this medium that attracts me. It is a medium that can be both difficult and easy, depending on how one engages with its intrinsic nature.
AS: It was my privilege to exhibit your works at the Art Mir in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, in January 2023. Not only were your works in watercolour well received but we saw a strong connection by both young and old to your works. How has been the response to your watercolours by the lay public in India? What does it mean to you to exhibit your art in public spaces?
VB: I am so grateful to you Aakshat for taking my work to Nizhny Novgorod . The exposure my work got is invaluable and I am so happy to know the young and old could relate to it. This country has a valuable history of watercolours , with the Bengal School leading the way. Having said that, I would tend to believe not much of the lay public today is conversant with the finer qualities and nuances of this medium. I have exhibited my watercolours in galleries just a couple of times . Mostly, I have posted my work on social media . . . And here the response has been good and quite motivating. I am also a member of a couple of international watercolour groups online, and there too my work has been well received. The group exhibition held in the second week of November is very important for me.
AS: As an illustrator, you would have had to collaborate with other artists, writers, and editors. How does that experience compare with your relationships with curators and exhibitors who exhibit your art?
VB: I have not really had the experience of working with curators or exhibitors because I have not done many exhibitions. There were not too many occasions when I may have had differences with the writers and editors I worked with. Now, it may be different, but when I illustrated books, generally the writer and illustrator rarely met or spoke. The editor was the common person for the two. But I do distinctively recall a few occasions where I had huge differences with the writer. . . I either left the project or we resolved the issues.
AS: Where do you create your art? Are you easily distracted, or do you seek inspiration from around you? Do you travel for creating your art? What is your perfect getaway and where?
VB: Ha! Ha! These are good questions. I’ve often been asked about where my studio is. Well, do remember 9¾s, the platform where Hogwarts Express took the children to a life of magic? Only the witches and wizards knew how to get to the platform which existed somewhere within and without. My studio too exists somewhere within and without my house – in bits and pieces – across the walls, doors and at the windows, on the dining table, in the balconies. It conjures up magically into a space when I choose to work undisturbed. I do not particularly travel for creating art, but always create art when I travel. My perfect getaway is Kumaon, my homeland. I love Ranikhet and have spent much time there – drawing, sketching, and writing. I also love going back to Lucknow, a beloved city where I spent much of my early years and which was my first inspiration for creating art.
AS: We’ve explored the social relevance of art in our earlier interviews with artists on artamour. What is your take on this?
VB: I do not know how exactly to answer this; but I do know that for me art has been the medium to communicate with myself and with the world outside. Art has led me to making connections with groups and communities who work for underprivileged children, people with disabilities, schools, NGOs that work with village women in uplifting their lives and much more. Through working with these groups, I have been able to contribute by way conducting art workshops and storytelling, writing and art sessions. My art has given me stability when I needed it most, and in doing so, enabled me to remain sane in the most difficult of times.
AS: Apart from art, what are your passions and areas of explorative interest?
VB: Music. I have been learning Hindustani Classical since the past 10 years, though sporadically. This training has kept alive my passion for the genre, besides the love I have for all the golden Hindi film music and Sufi music – qawwalis, sohars, naat sharifs – and folk music from India and the world. My current passion is to trying to identify the particular ragas on which Hindi film songs and other musical compositions are based 😊. I cook with great passion, mostly Indian cuisine. I love making biryanis, kormas , kebabs, and all that gorgeous Awadhi food, even though I do not eat meat.
(All images are courtesy of the artist, Vandana Bist.)
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