Worthy signature: A painting by Lalu Prosad Shaw at CIMA (Pic:Tapan Das)

Wresting recognition for rural expressions from urban connoisseurs has been a quite remarkable project CIMA seems to have taken up in recent times. Its shows have accorded the status of art to village craft and folk forms. And in so doing, the gallery has discovered for viewers worthy signatures in the faceless anonymity of regional genres. And now, in its annual show, on till December 31, the divide between mainstream and marginal art is dissolved as a common space is shared by artists from either side.

The interesting thing is that the inherited idiom of folk art is not totally immune to influences any more as forms get updated, perhaps due to enlightened intervention. Take the case of Swarno Chitrakar who, paired with Tapas Konar in a workshop earlier this year, was exposed to an experimental mingling to produce a fine piece displayed here once again. Or Bhagma Bai, who works with and on unlikely material: acrylic and canvas. The artist’s rural roots are reflected in the imagery of a close mesh of weaves on one side and a pattern of lines on the other, the kind that decorates mud floors and walls. Yet tradition is transcended as echoes of abstract art come across.

No less noticeable are Ram Singh Urvedi and Rameshwar Karmakar. The stylised animals and trees of one, harking back to cloth craft, and the impressive 166.5 cm brass Baul of the other with its intricate details, are items to hold you.

Among the established seniors, there’s Paramjit Singh with a set of soft pastel works entrancing in their Turneresque guile of tones and textures that invoke suggestions of landscapes. Arpita Singh’s understated watercolours with sketchy trees and buildings adrift in smudgy colour zones is wryly child-like. Other seniors to be seen are Arun Bose ? whose prints and a painting are on view ? M.F. Husain, Manu Parekh and Lalu Prosad Shaw.

Among the others, there’s Akhilesh, flinging an impish dare to viewers in such titles as Untitled? Why Not which has frisky little line-forms romping about in weightless abandon. Viewer attention will be claimed by Chintan Upadhyay’s montage of 20 small frames of spare and sprightly pen-and-ink images that range from temples and observatories to sensuous biomorphic forms, narrating what seems to be a private voyage. Yusuf Arakkal is in this company, with two uncharacteristic semi-abstract works which see-the with insidious disquiet, as though things were crumbling and falling apart. And Palaniappan, with a set of cleverly varied mixed-media graphics.

Another artist of interest is Kingshuk Sarkar because of the intriguing movement, the agitated quiver and ripple induced in the sweep of his ink strokes. The broad waves in No. 13 may bring to mind American Indian iconography: the double-headed Mixtec serpent. In No. 12, he is more clearly representational as raw energy is imparted to the urgent stride of an advancing man. Sumitro Basak’s search for the telling clarity of cut-out forms strays too close to Soviet models on the one hand and computer graphics on the other. But Madhuri Kathe is both capricious and controlled at once in her abstraction, allowing add-ons that look like wrinkled paper strips or threadbare fabric to import the unexpected in sedate schemes of dark tones.