Donald Fels and Signpainters of South India

The exhibition “What is a Trade? Donald Fels and Signpainters of South India” was organized by the Tacoma Art Museum. The exhibition consists of 16 monumental enamel paintings on aluminum sheet made by Fels, a Seattle-based artist, in collaboration with signboard painters in Cochin, India. The exhibition explores the many interrelated issues involved in globalization from 500 yr old voyages of exploration through present day economics.

Between 2008 and 2010 the exhibition traveled to museums in the Pacific Northwest. The last stop was the Hoffman Gallery at Lewis and Clark College in Portland. There was significant interest at the college in the exhibition. Linda Tesner, curator at the gallery wrote that, “It was an extraordinary and highly pertinent exhibition for a liberal arts college as it touched on many other disciplines taught at the College. It was a very popular exhibition with students, faculty and staff, as well as with the larger Portland metropolitan community.” She urged the exhibition organizers to continue the tour to other college and university venues.

Exhibition Catalog Cover

In order that the exhibition continue to travel it is being made available through Seattle’s Davidson Galleries and Artist Trust, a pioneering not for profit that benefits individual artists in Washington State. Sam Davidson, principal of the gallery for three decades, will handle all the details of traveling the exhibition. As co-sponsor, Artist Trust will benefit directly from the tour- all profits from the (the very reasonable) loan fee, will go the artist grant programs that the Trust administers.

The exhibition was designed to be easily portable, since it had to be shipped initially from India. All the paintings are made up of 4x4’ modules that stack in two 4x4’ crates. Lightweight and straight forward to ship and handle, the exhibition is also easy to mount, the aluminum sheets screw directly to the gallery walls.

The handsome accompanying 80 page catalog, published by the University of Washington Press, is well written, in full color and presents numerous layers of complexity in discussing the fascinating subject. Tacoma Art Museum prepared wall texts are included with the exhibition and will be sent electronically.

Donald Fels is available to lecture about the exhibition and his work, and meet with students. As Tesner wrote, “Our students found him very engaging and involving. He is intellectually curious and passionate about his work- work that is based on thorough research (he completed the project as a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar in India). The exhibition is stunning and timely and as it follows the legacy of Vasco da Gama, steeped in historical detail.”

Review: Donald Fels at Portland's Hoffman Gallery

There are some gorgeous and curious paintings on display at the Hoffman Gallery at Lewis & Clark College.

Among other things, these intrepidly colorful works depict Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama's initial sighting of India in 1498; cultural tensions between Europeans and Southeast Asians; and the influence of technology on Indian trade and commercial practices. They also express the joy of painting as practiced by a group of unknown Indian artists who likely won't get a chance to paint much in this manner again.

The works are the result of an utterly fascinating project conceived by Washington artist Donald Fels, and executed by Fels and several Indian billboard painters.

Intrigued by the history of da Gama's motives and influence on the spice trade, Fels wanted to conduct his own cultural investigation through the medium of billboard painting. Billboard paintings are those utterly disposable images of commercial goods ubiquitous in India -- they're loud and as colorful as a Bollywood film, too.

So off Fels went to India for three trips over the course of a few years. In Kerala, Fels hired several talented sign painters to paint depictions of the commercial trade industry. Sometimes the images were conceived, sometimes the scenes were taken directly from photographs or other sources.

For Fels, the tension of this project was the painters' initial distrust of him -- he was seen at first as another carpetbagger, like da Gama. For the painters, the tension was creative liberation -- they could paint their reflections, or interpretations, of the world, of history. Before, all that was expected of them was to paint an image of any commercial product boldly and colorfully. Now, prodded by Fels, who also painted, they were being asked to think freely.

The paintings tell different stories. One, "The Face of Trade," depicts three traders in front of stacks of goods they are selling. Another, "Weddings on Hold," outlines the hardship of a mother after the suicide of her husband, a pepper farmer. A pepper crisis prevented him from raising enough money for their daughter's wedding, thus sending him into despair.

The personal stories and the subtle critique of the global economy give these paintings resonance beyond the formal aspects of the work. But what stands out most of all is, indeed, the painterly relish exhibited by the artists. Simply, they love to paint. And they do it well. Using enamel paint, not oil, they endow these paintings with richness. They sing, as Fels says.

A sad footnote, of sorts. These painters no longer work making commercial billboards. Between the time Fels started this project and finished it, billboard images went from being hand-painted to digitally printed. It's a cheap and quick way to produce images. So, within a few short years, these painters saw their art form and their livelihoods disappear. They witnessed a computer take over what had once been crafted by hand.

Published: Thursday, January 28, 2010. D.K. Row, The Oregonian.

Exhibition History: Vasco da Gama, India, Signpainters and Fels

Joseph and Joseph

In 1498 Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon, Portugal to Calicut in Southern India in search of pepper and spices for his king. Scholars agree that the da Gama incursion marks the beginning of global trade. Da Gama’s voyage led directly to colonialism in Asia, as well as what we now call globalization.

Donald Fels has been making art about trade around the world since 1990. Having spent years looking into issues to do with global trade, Fels felt compelled to examine its roots. In 2002 he began researching da Gama’s legacy. In 2003 he participated in an exploratory artist residency in Kerala, called Malabar when da Gama landed there. The experience proved pivotal. Fels worked with local signpainters in Trviandrum to portray issues put into play by da Gama’s arrival on the Malabar Coast.

In 2004, Fels returned to Kerala, to Kochi, where da Gama began and ended his trade with India. Having been named a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar, Fels was able to spend seven months working with a group of signpainters to create a large series of stunning ‘hoardings’- enamel on metal billboards. Trade being a commercial activity, the choice of commercial media was dictated by the content itself.

Until extremely recently, India cities large and small were full of bright and brilliantly painted hand-painted advertising hoardings. Despite a time- honored tradition in India of outdoor narrative painting, it has become completely eclipsed by the very global forces that da Gama set in motion. The digital ‘revolution’ has brought mass-produced signage to India, and the billboard painters are out of work. To Fels employing them to paint about the relationship of local to global trade seemed exactly right.

Raja painting

All the paintings were researched and designed by Fels, each painted by one of the three painters, Surya, Raju or Paul (Kerala signpainters established a reputation with a single name). The painters interpreted and embellished the sketches that Fels gave them; as the works progressed they were discussed jointly and modifications were common.

Working together daily in a large ex-pepper warehouse (a godown along Bazar Road, the centuries old waterfront trading area along the waterfront), the team became close knit. Aiding and abetting the connections they made was 22 year old Jiju who joined the group initially as translator, but quickly became the project manager. The synergy that developed is very evident in the work they accomplished together.

Donald Fels

For the past thirty years visual artist Donald Fels has been active on the West Coast, in Europe and Asia. He holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University where he had a triple major in Art, English and History, and an M.A. Ed. with Honors from City University where he was the Board of Governor’s Presidential Scholar. He also studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and the University of Washington. Fels has been a Fulbright Fellow to Italy and a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar to India. He has twice received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is a grant recipient of the Jack Straw Foundation, Artist Trust, the Ferguson Foundation, the Goodfellow Foundation, and the Washington Council on the Humanities. He was a Whiteley Fellow at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Marine Laboratory from 2002-06. Fels has received multiple grants, awards and commissions from the Puget Sound area arts commissions.

The Washington State Arts Commission recently purchased an entire series of paintings he completed in South India, for permanent installation at University of Washington Tacoma Honors College. Fels’ work has been exhibited at museums including the Seattle Art Museum, Center on Contemporary Art, Cultural Development Authority Gallery, Tacoma Art Museum, Bellevue Art Museum, Henry Art Gallery, NW Museum of Art and Culture, Bologna’s Contemporary Art Museum, Iron Gallery at the University of Washington Tacoma, Bank of America Gallery, Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum, Boston’s Institute for Contemporary Art, The Penang Museum, and at UCLA, University of Puget Sound, Lewis and Clark College, Bellevue College, and University of Washington. His work is in numerous collections around the world.

Following trade in commodities, Fels has undertaken a number of projects worldwide that have resulted in work in a wide range of media, including painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, public art, installations, and book manuscripts. He is motivated by ideas and the connections between them.

Since 1995 he has been a trustee of the Henry Art Gallery, the NW contemporary art museum. He has written about art and culture for The Seattle Times, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Seattle Weekly, City Arts, crosscut.com, The San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times. He has been a guest editor of Arcade, where he produced an issue called “The City of Ideas” and was founding President of the Board of Directors of the Seattle art magazine REFLEX. He exhibits regularly at Davidson Galleries in Seattle. In 2011, he has an exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center and an installation in New Orleans for Prospect 2. A glimpse of his projects can be seen at artisthinker.com.