https://doi.org/10.67147/literariness.v1i3.126
Visual Rhythms and the Saturated Page: Decolonising Sequentiality through Indigenous Graphic Narrative Bhimayana
Aditi Antil
Research Scholar
Department of English & Cultural Studies
Panjab University
Abstract: This paper interrogates the Eurocentric paradigm centered around a “logic of the void” and aims to establish a counter-aesthetic model that focuses on the saturated space. Drawing upon the visual layouts of a contemporary graphic narrative Bhimayana: Experiences of Untouchability (2011) illustrated by Durgabai and Subash Vyam and published by Navayana. The paper demonstrates how the traditional comic gutter has largely functioned as a colonial containment and a mechanical tool to separate space and time. Through this aesthetic of filling the page with continuous folk motifs and patterns, the background of the artwork changes from passive to an active vocal participant in the story.
The formal evaluation of Dignas (traditional geometric patterns of Gond art) illustrates how Visual Stacco and rhythmic texture break away from the Euro-American comic grid with strict boxed compartmentalisation. Through dense saturation of the page with repetitive dot-clusters and parallel line-hatching, Durgabai and Subhash Vyam adapt oral folk traditions and indigenous cosmologies into printed graphic format that produces an “acoustic density” that guides the reader’s eye through somatic texture instead of empty gutters and margins. Furthermore, the paper studies how the replacement of traditional comic panels through the use of “organic borders” and “zoo-morphic” speech bubbles deconstructs the Eurocentric dichotomy existing between “Text” (intellectual content) and “Image” (illustration). Ultimately, the analysis concludes that the hyper-saturated canvas of a graphic narrative functions as an assertion of Aesthetic Sovereignty, transforming the printed book into a haptic performance that challenges the secular standard models of graphic sequence and historical representation.
Keywords: Gond art, graphic narrative, Horror Vacui, Sequential Art, Visual Rhythm
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