Self-taught Indian draughtsman, shoeshiner and cobbler in the state of Maharashtra (India).
Life
Kashinath Chawan comes from a family of cobblers: his grandfather and father already practised the trade, which he himself has followed since the age of fifteen. He lives in a slum and keeps a small shoeshine stall in town. Illiterate, he has received no artistic training and harbours no artistic ambition: he draws to soothe his worries.
In the 1980s, knocked off his bicycle by a lorry, he suffered a triple fracture and for a time lost the use of his right arm. Drawing also served as rehabilitation: the repeated movements of the pen loosened his injured arm. He draws on the pavement, sitting cross-legged, mostly during the slack hours of the afternoon, and often at night, when his family is asleep.
The work
Chawan draws in ballpoint pen, often coloured, on pieces of cardboard torn from old shoeboxes or on papers picked up in the street. Far from seeing them as obstacles, he regards the flaws of these supports as a resource.
He makes no preparatory sketch. The line, light at first, is gone over in successive passes and gradually densifies: from this he draws chiaroscuro effects and great graphic softness. His subjects come from Indian tradition: Hindu deities (Shiva), spiritual masters (Swami Samarth, Sant Gajanan Maharaj, Sai Baba), scenes from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, but also political figures and Bollywood stars.
Exhibitions
- “summer variations #2”, Galerie christian berst, Paris, 5 to 26 July 2025