In communion with nature

By Francis P. Barclay

Born in 1971 in Mettukkundu, a small and beautiful village near Virudhunagar, a humble K Subburaja was never conscious of his fervour for nature. For it was a hidden feeling in him, and it was not until he wrapped up his school studies he felt it awakening in him. In 1992, advised by his friends, he went to Chennai to do the drawing instructor course. After completing the course he joined the TI Cycles where his brother was a manager. But it took only a couple of months for him to realise that at TI Cycles he was a square peg in a round hole. He listened to his instincts and then took the brush. Starting with portraits of people, he graduated to recreating nature on canvas. The landscape artist KAS Rajaa was thus born. With 1,200-odd paintings and 200-odd exhibitions in his graph, Rajaa is all set to scale new heights in the world of colours.

A blithe Raaja presented the eighth mega series exhibition of paintings on `The Nature' at Kasthuri Srinivasan Trust Art Gallery in Coimbatore for five days from March 23 and the visitors relished an assorted set of serene
landscapes.
The Ayyanar river gushing through the rocky banks, the darkly menacing forests of Assam, the evening silhouette of MAC Cricket Stadium in Chennai had something more to transpire than beauty. It was the landscape artiste's
adulation for Nature. When man has forgotten that he is a part of Nature, Rajaa just spoke the language of Nature.
A shy person outwardly and an intellect within, he said, ``Normally, people don't specialise in drawing scenery. But I decided to go the road less travelled by, for Nature and her beauty have always been alluring me. In
fact, I am charmed with my own works on Nature.''
No doubt all the 38-odd paintings displayed are all about Nature. It takes one for a blithesome errand to the crimson Sri Lankan ocean, Kodaikanal forest range and the second avenue of Besant Nagar, to experience the bleak faces of earth.
His brush bends to portray the browbeaten dark walls and the sky dressed in orange, with the beamy trunk of trees and lush green leaf bunches glittering in sunlight. Though his paintings are all about greenery, none looked like another.
He told Weekend, ``I work a lot in a scrap chart before starting on the canvas. I prepare shades and shades of green and practise each stroke till I am appeased. Even a random stroke has a particular form and meaning.''
His works are soothing to the eyes of those who are in a drift from Nature, living in city. It is impelling to see in his paintings the freezed frame of the fast flowing water or the motionless coconut grooves. His Nature is calm and graceful.
Apart from garnishing hues of green, his realistic portrayals include the beach of Kozhikode, Mancholai tea estate and Courtrallam waterfalls. In all of them his obligation to artistry and his amity towards Nature are overt.