The colours of imagination

Published in Weekend, 2006

By Francis P. Barclay

An artist has no bounds to portray his imagination. Otherwise, how could he evince a woman riding on a herculean bull? Or how could he radiate emotion freezing the frame of a ship-collision, when the pieces of the ship are flying? or bring the enjoyment of participating in a pastoral gala?
A group of five artistes, Artiflys, display a plethora of images ensnared from lost civilizations to the busy streets in this day and age, at the Kasthuri Sreenivasan Art Gallery.
D Nedunchelian, a cavern artist, who gives an assorted set of neatly-finished and simple sketches, takes us to the people of Mohenjodaro, and relates the centuries-old civilisation with the Egyptian pyramids and mummies and Dravidian symbols. He gives life to the clapped-out sculptures in the Elephanta caves of Ajantha and Ellora, with a relic touch. He uses copper and gold hues with black, brown, cobalt and a few secondary colours to consign the mood of antiquity.
Spraying the colours, he brings out clearly the sculptural texture in his portraits of Trimurthi and Arthanaleswaran. He gives new forms and shapes to the entities of the past, supported by the Tamil manuscripts in Harappan
calligraphy. Out of the convention, he limns landscape using a finger of his. He also portrays the image of Lord Ganesha, which was brought by scrapping off wet paint with a blade in consonant with the flow of a music.
S K Rajasekaran, with a strong influence of cubism, talks about balance and direction in his paintings. He captures emotion from a freezed skirmish, relinquishing the physical part of the objects. With quick strokes of
brushes and broken curves and lines, he radiates emotion and force in his paintings.
K Ravi finds it easy to convey his emotions through women. His paintings in pink, purple, green and yellow, all in harmony, are a delight to the eyes. They embody women with flowers and birds to convey the meaning of love and innocence. Even the shape of the leaves in the background is altered to suit the mood. His style to leave a thin line of canvas unpainted along the borders of the objects adds visibility to the images.
V Dhakshinamurthy conveys his inspirations on the devout culture and society. With his bold strokes and blurred border, he plays with the form of Lord Ganesha and portrays him as a tiny elephant as assumed by a child. His
obsession with nature and the gleeful mood is expressed in his portrayal of people dancing and playing traditional instruments in mirth. He catches the `Chamandhi sellers' and flower vendors with a highly sculptural backdrop,
all in bright hues. He conveys the mood of ecstasy with the angle-off postures of musicians playing drums and people performing their traditional `Kavadi' and `Mayilattam' dance.
V N Bharathan portrays the busy and familiar streets with a splash of strong colours. His random strokes of thick hot colour depict the simplified image of lillies in a pond. He finds peace in a tattered statue of Buddha and a crimson flower with `loose' petals and `withered' leaves. His imagination go pale for a old house of his grandfather.
The exhibition will be on till Sunday, from 10 am to 7 pm.