Published on Page 4 Weekend
with the New Indian Express dated Jan 6, 2007
By Francis P Barclay
The divine soul is wide awake in each one of us, yearning to enounce the secret of life. Be cool and close your eyes, it will slowly disclose the secret. It's what Manisha Raju, a representational artist, says about art as she believes that it is a means to reach the celestial inner self.
Born in 1969 at Nagpur in Maharashtra, Manisha has a few art exhibitions to her credit both at home and abroad. Her latest exhibition `Nostalgia' was held at the Kasthuri Sreenivasan Art Gallery on the Avinashi Road in Coimbatore. The 20-odd paintings, that were on display at the six-day exhibition which ended on January 1, were about meditation and introspection.
Although art was an inborn talent, all her initial interests were in studies and she got a doctorate in management besides many degrees. But not after she visited the Cholamandal artist village in Chennai, 10 years ago.
She settled there and art became her main vocation. She started with abstract art, but in 1999, she started doing figurative works in dry pastel medium. Although Cholamandal has got a grip in her, the influence of the
Bengal School of Art is evident in her paintings. ``That's because of the influence of Shantiniketan artist Satyavrat Deshmukh,'' she said.
Manisha's paintings reveal her belief that inner soul is always live and vibrant. The forms of people, from Lord Vishnu to Arthanareeswaran to a flower vendor are more or less similar and feminine. ``The difference in form is only with the outer self,'' she said.
She has her own style of drawing the face. ``The illuminating faces in my paintings are those of the inner self,'' she said.
Manisha doesn't fail to outline a flower in each of her paintings. ``I use flowers to reveal the freshness of the soul. The life span of a real flower is very less but the flowers in the paintings are always fresh,'' she said.
She added: ``The lotus which I have used in many of my paintings symbolises evolution. Lotus is a flower in which development is brisk and overt. Life is also like that.''
Indian mythology also has influence in her paintings. ``Mythology is a source of values, culture, tradition, conceptual ideologies and aesthetics. The forms have a traditional touch of Indian mythology. The colours are
lavish with dark backgrounds. My lyricism is an expression of mythological forms,'' she said.
The figures in her paintings have closed eyes. They are composite and tranquil with a divine aura. ``They are silently speaking with the supreme inside,'' Manisha explained.
As you look into the paintings, you `hear' the errie sound of silence. It makes you feel the power and pleasure of introspection.
And what does the soul say? ``The secret of life. Gaining it is a long process. The ultimate secret of life is `nothing'.''
