The Weight of the Body

February 7, 2019, 9:20 pm

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When you consider how much you weigh not on the weighing scale but otherwise – emotionally, mentally and in every visceral way possible; the question takes an entirely enigmatic turn than you can't foresee it. There are such instances I have come across when you weigh more than you can turn out to be when you no longer can bear your own weight, when you feel over-powered and burdened by the burgeoning weight of your being. Recently I came across an article in 3:AM Magazine (Thanks to Joseph Schreiber and Mini Menon for introducing me to some incredible writing) titled “The Weight of a Body in a Photograph” by Elisa Taber and that set me into profound thought for I have experienced it in an altered and elusive way myself.

You can read Ms.Taber’s article in the link mentioned to get an idea of what stirred me into this post. The article put me on course reminding me of paintings and/or people whose weight I felt at least for a minuscule of time. But that minute time was intense enough to leave its unflinching mark on me; to which I get back often whenever I think of them. They range from Amrita Sher Gil to T K Padmini, from Sylvia Plath to Virginia Woolf, from Paula Rego to Hopper.

The Epiphany

Hunched back frail nude seated on a wooden chair with a hat near her right hand, and framed by a morose and obscure curtained backdrop, gazing into the unknown as if she is no longer present in the room but has been transported into a yearning past. Her melancholic eyes speak manifold. Amrita Sher Gil’s ‘The Professional Model’ doesn’t appear sensuous or vulgar or tantalizing but just a vulnerable lost soul, humane. “There is nothing erotic about this. Only stillness and a nudity that conceals so little she nearly seems dressed.” (Elisa Taber, ‘The Weight of a body in a Photograph’ Elisa was speaking of a different image there and yet it perfectly fits here.)

The Professional Model – 1933  

Pic: Pinterest: Mike Catalonian

T K Padmini’s embracing couple, for am unsure of the title, though apparently romantically involved weighs more than meets the eye. There is a sense of the pulsating breath, an eternal longing in the gaze and the embrace as if they were meant to be and yet would never be. The apparent omen is deepened by the passionate red. It is definitely a story left unfinished – a fragment, wherein the lovers never ‘lived happily ever after’. It’s more elegiac than a sonnet. If you consider Padmini’s own life, she has been weighed down and forgotten in the lanes and by-lanes of the past than all her contemporary artists who apparently weren’t women.

Pic: www.edasseri.org

Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Room of One’s Own’, ‘To the Lighthouse’, ‘Mrs. Dalloway’, ‘The Waves’ etc. were part of my Masters’ and I felt distanced from it. They were pretty intense for our understanding or so we felt at the time. We used to think why should the writers write something that shakes up our very existence providing parallel worlds that’s disconcerting, miserable, often times alienating. You enter and you are totally lost and yet you find your way out somehow by the end of it dragging yourself through the labyrinth. But Virginia herself couldn’t and the way she closed on her life by stuffing stones in her coat pocket to ‘facilitate’ herself drown, visualizing that always weighed me down to suffocation.

Pic: bbc.co.uk

Immediately Sylvia Plath comes to mind, I think of her more often than Virginia though. One of the most talented Confessional poets who should have lived to realize her unparalleled potential. Suffocation from carbon monoxide, her body always weighs down many a soul. It crashes upon the reality of revelations and confessions. No one could help her in spite of it all happening right under their noses. Her 'words' often cried for help. "Placid exterior and turbulent interior" Plath's quote often repeats itself in several situations.

"Dying
Is an art, like everything else.

I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I’ve a call."
(Sylvia Plath’s poem “Lady Lazarus”)

Pic: Poeticous.com

Paula Rego, I feel, prefers ‘bodies’ that are rotund and muscular in frame, not frail, lean and lanky and yet they appear weightless or more than their bearing depending on where they are placed. They are subject to all sorts of cavernous, dark, mysterious and sometimes structured violence. ‘Snow White swallows the poisoned apple’, the ‘Dog Woman’ series, ‘Abortion’ series, ‘Love’, ‘Flood’ and almost every other work of Rego imbues with the harassing weight – drifting, floating, crawling, slithering and/or static.

Pic: Saatchi gallery

In Edward Hopper’s ‘Summer Interior’ even though the woman’s face is obscured one can read so much emotion curled up in the folds of the sheet and bed and the lady herself. Semi-nude, she sits slouched on the floor dragging the white quilt from the unmade bed. She has a lowered, despondent gaze; entirely absorbed in her thoughts and is unaware of her surroundings. The patch of streaming light from the open window on the right end is the only sign of relief from the otherwise sullen setting. The white of the sheets and her sleeveless shirt adds to the light which otherwise would have engulfed in darkness. There is a craving to let go off everything they are holding onto though that seems immediately impossible because either something is brewing or just ensued. Edward Hopper has not only ‘his people’ but the very structure – whether it’s an old barn, a house by the railroad, a lighthouse, an office, a diner or even a street – weighing down on itself.

Pic: edwardhopper.net

(Though there are still many more in mind, I think I will halt here.) 

Whatever the image... ‘those faces’ cease to exist, it is like unmasking and making it apparent. The bodies themselves cease to be and beyond the natural forces in control. You feel both weightless and more in weight depending on where you place yourself both in context and out of context.

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Body as a Mediating Element - Murali Cheeroth on Performance Art (Part 1)

February 11, 2019, 7:32 am

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A well-known name in the national art scene and internationally as well, Murali Cheeroth has become almost synonymous with Performance art in India. Currently working with major architectural institutions across the country, Cheeroth completed his BFA and MFA from Kalabhavan, Santiniketan. He started with painting and later diversified into video and performance art. He has exhibited both in solo and group shows across the globe and has won several awards and scholarships. An eminent artist with theatre background he immerses himself in ‘space’ entering a trance-like state engaging with his audience and the urban landscape. His paintings too depict an urban landscape that reminds us of photo-realism and yet is more of a graphic representation with the elements of cinema, architecture and predominantly characteristic neon colour codes. Murali Cheeroth’s works are a visual imprint of what lies around him which is perceivable and yet sometimes which is hidden in plain sight and needs the insight to formulate it; they are overlapped realities. There is an underlying streak of violence lurking all along which keeps the viewer/audience on edge. His works are not just about city life but an exploration of the physical and psychological impact of the immediate environment as well. Cheeroth’s ideals and his true humanitarian spirit to engage with the soul of the mass and the essence of the land makes his art much more than just an entertaining practice. It calls for engagement, involvement, participation, dialogue and connection in every form possible. The honesty and genuineness in his voice speak for itself. He is here to propagate ideas, to disturb the comfortable, to stir the viewer into action rather than just be a bystander of an event.

Here, my emphasis is on Murali Cheeroth’s performance art and the interview is devised accordingly to know more about the genre of art that is becoming the fast-focus of many of our current exhibitions.

Murali Cheeroth

Deepa: Let us begin from the beginning, can you give us a brief about yourself – education, family, work etc.

M.Cheeroth: I was born and brought up in an agrarian family, in Mullassery, Thrissur district. Temple rituals and Ayurvedic practices were part of our daily lives and childhood learning.

My art education includes a Diploma in Fine Arts from Government College of Fine Arts, Thrissur, BFA and MFA from Santiniketan, West Bengal and advanced computer diploma in digital media. I am currently based out of Bangalore.

I have exhibited my works in over 100 significant shows across the globe in the last two decades. Among my collectors are corporate institutions, museums and private art collectors. In the past I have worked extensively with printmaking and theatre, now I primarily work on painting, video and performance. My visual works refer to a wide variety of sources in the cultural sphere and contain within them a deep conversation with the history of representation in visual media, fine art, cinema, music and architecture. Within the context of the history of visual representation, my current explorations include the architecture of the city, urbanization and urban cultures. They look closely at the ideas of re-construction, infrastructure, technology, speed and change, intersections of local and the global, multiple layers of urban identities and so on. I situate each work within larger thematic explorations in humanities, social sciences and in visual art media.

Deepa: How would you describe your art?

M.Cheeroth: As a creative practitioner, my mind is always occupied with constant research and reading that I am engaged in, and my work is a natural progression of these thinking processes. So, when I begin a painting I have great clarity about what I want to do and I don’t face any challenge.

Live art completely negates studio practice. It’s challenging to simultaneously run studio practice and performance art.

It also makes a lot of impact on the artist as a social activist. It also brings a lot of new tools for your practice. As Gramsci mentioned, it’s a question of the human encounter - the encounter of body and space.

Terrestrial verses I/4 x 4 feet/acrylic on canvas/2019

Deepa: Since you mention Gramsci, body and space, do you think art is a passive revolution or how effective is its intervention? The body serving as a political arena in itself, does it resonate with dominant political ideologies and structures?

M.Cheeroth: It’s said more as a resonance. If we look at that aspect ‘Body’ is like a cliché. We still continue exploring the possibilities of body and space. I was just pointing out a basic analogy and the feel that it provides. It’s more about a strong standpoint. But it doesn’t stop there – in the thinking or conversing or the ideas that we conceive. It goes beyond that; the day-to-day experiences or challenges are entirely different from the earlier ones. The current time calls for a more research-oriented approach. Body is not just a tool, it is a mediating element too. Body and mind has its nuances like the psychological aspect, body as a mediator that sparks the interaction or dialogue with the audience, identifying the spaces and the different aspects of these spaces like the communication, movement, continuity, the functionality, body as a measurement, body as a user – all these are in function during a performance. From 50s-60s, Body is the strong element of performance art and it has reached its maximum richness, the peak now. Many artists like Patty Chan, Joseph Beuys and so many others have used the body in a way that it has become a reference point for the later artists. That is how I see it.


Deepa: What according to you is performance art? Is your performance spontaneous or scripted, at times?

M.Cheeroth: Performance Art is live, it’s spontaneous, and it reveals itself in the present, in front of the audience. It also engages in the act of creation as I perform. Where I engage my body, space and other cognitive articulations. I work on a human scale and its manifestation and outcome cannot be known in advance.

I don’t do much planning for my performance. I will have a very simple idea or a seed in my mind. Once I am familiar with the space where I am going to perform, I arrive at a broad concept that I want to touch upon in my performance. When I start performing I start exploring this concept and at times, it’s more of an evolution, wherein I spontaneously evolve many aspects/layers in the performance - as thoughts and space interventions unfold itself each and every moment. It’s spontaneous. Scripted ones become a theatrical activity.

Conversations -1/Morning Hills Performance Art Biennale/2018

Deepa: Do you think activism is an inevitable part of performance art - as it does question social reality, the politics of identity, the constraints-no constraints of space and physicality, the cause and effect of the world/situations around and much more - or is it activism itself that is performance art?

M.Cheeroth: Historically yes, it’s a commitment towards the art fraternity and its historicity. Many artists’ works reflect a historical conflict between activism and image making or visual simulacra. In contemporary art today there have been a number of artists engaging in works that attempt to collapse the relationship between art and activism, aiming to create a democratic and historically integrated motion of political practice.


Deepa: Do you think this visual simulacrum - since it is supposed to not have a base to cling on to - can be misleading? Do you think they misconstrue the facts/truth of shared existence that they project?

M.Cheeroth: We cannot stand aloof and make an existence. There is an aloofness as an artist in the query which is not possible. There’s a spontaneity while painting and that spontaneity comes from your political leaning and political consciousness. The commitment or responsibility of my earlier days is not appropriate today because the question of originality and organic spontaneity was broken there – the existential questions were all different then. When we say that we are ‘ecosophical’ - ecological and philosophical, our vision is made clear. It is clearer when you take into consideration the education scenario where when a teacher nurtures the student, the teacher ideally touches upon every aspect that the student needs. In today’s art world, everything from the boundary itself gets redefined and it’s probably the position that we take that makes the questions relevant and it’s that relevance that we impose or question in the contemporary and post-modern times. In today’s times, instead of becoming a part of any art movement it’s better to generate a local and global context to your work. That is what creates the peculiarity of your work and practice. It is because we’ve redefined the practice of our work, the practice of running our economical side that we are able to make a sustainable contribution. Unlike the social commitment some 20 or 50 years ago; it’s more gradual, spontaneous and organic. Each artist needs to practice it with more verve than ever. I am someone who likes to see it in that light.

Conversations -3/Morning Hills Performance Art Biennale/2018

Deepa: Do you think performance art is marginalized since it is non-traditional in the so-called-mainstream visual art world, specifically in India? What do you think is the scope and range of Performance art in India in the near future?

M.Cheeroth: Earlier it was very much marginalized and part of alternative art practice. After the economic recession in 2008, many innovative art programmes, many artists’ collective or artists’ commune and individual artists started reinventing the gap between art and art practice. The popularity of performance was an offshoot of this and many artists transported performance art to a higher level.

On the other hand, the gallery sponsored performances started to take place. In a nutshell, we can say that performance art was scaled up outside the gallery, but, now it has become a part of the gallery activities also. The individual artists try to demark and reinvent the thin line between the market and the new audiences. The audience is a part of each of the performance. The happiness is always gained through a small gathering with flexible techniques introduced and performed so that the viewer could engage as much as they want to. However, the political performer always tries to negate and eradicate the conventional notion of the audience and viewership. 

That said, it has now become an integral part of the mainstream. Now even international art performance festivals take place in India and major galleries promote performance art, even the major platforms like India Art Fair, Kochi Biennale etc. have started to hold performances.


Deepa: You say that you are building “...a new visual experience that is clear and vivid.” Would you base it on reality or fantasy? Which one do you prefer? Or is it a mix of both? How much clarity would you like to offer to the audience? Would you like to comfort them or cause discomfort and stir them up into action?

M.Cheeroth: Social and historical layers are very important in my work, intangibility which comes out of the mixture of all these things create new visual reality for my spectator or audience. Art becomes part of their ownership. It’s a question of freedom, wisdom and liberated spectator comes in a very dialogical way, which is more or less, like Barthes said: “Author is dead or author is absent”. Who is the author? Who creates that authorship in an artist? What is the intra relationship that he built up with his inspiration and subjectiveness? Or, how he extracts the authorship from the process of creating artwork from the sociological issues? What are the values we give to an authoritative object maker? And since an object is re-interpreted, re-oriented and replaced, from the history of contemporary art, the question of collectibles comes to the picture. Where does the question of the audience or the spectator become the participator in your practice? A matter of democratic viewership and non-democratic elite viewership comes in. Why it’s important to give value to an art practitioner? Who said everyone is an artist? Everyone is an artist. Artistic activity is a game, game without object and toys and without memories, the moment of shared communication is the realization of the artwork (Rikrit Trivanija). What happens between the people and the so-called ideologue in that case?  If the public is not there, the piece of artwork doesn’t exist.

Notes from Other Side of the River /Crimson Art Gallery/Bangalore/2016

Deepa: How do you think your art impacts the audience? What are the varied reactions that you receive during and after your performance since it would be more questions that you would raise? Sometimes the performance gets extreme causing anxiety, discomfort even pain and probably depressive environment by risking one’s own body making it the medium. What’s your take on that since you have done performances like “Frequency (Hz)” and “Unmarked” (video series) etc.? Any memorable recollection?

M.Cheeroth: Performance art is always a risk because you try to overcome body dynamics and articulation, even space and objects are very challenging. Once you start to do a performance, you visualize and enter into a very imaginative and intangible world. However you think and articulate, certain things will happen and certain things can’t…so you start getting into your own norms of the world, and you become a practitioner of those norms.

I have gone through various experiences in my performance. As part of Colombo Biennale, I was performing on the floor, where I have been using different tools like books, broken pot, fabric, knife etc. In the middle of the performance, I was negating my body using different situations and objects, the challenge was object-body-space co-ordinations. In action, as I was pulling out my skin layers, one of the audience interfered and handed over a very sharp knife to me. It was a challenge as a performer to perform with a sharp material like that. Your immediate impulse is not to withdraw from the situation but continue your action. I continued. I cut a part of my body, it started bleeding slightly. I took the challenge and I achieved perfection, I believe. 


Deepa: Causing harm to oneself – do you think that’s essential to art? Does that validate the act? The viewer giving you the knife to see whether you would get realistic, is that act on the part of the viewer permissible or acceptable since he’s trying to intensify the pain that is REAL? So where is the line drawn in performance art or is there a line at all?

M.Cheeroth: See, these are accidental matters. When we start a performance somewhere, it is time-based interventions that we conduct and the challenges there are real and to accept those challenges are essential. ‘Body’ and ‘life’ are different, the body is just a tool...it’s a continuously engaging and a mediating element. If you ask “Will it hurt?” The answer is “Yes, it will.

Chris Burden did it all the time. In one of his performances, he coaxed a friend and stood in the freeway where vehicles sped at 300-400 km/hr. It is a kind of self-infliction.When the body is on such challenging spaces, the way it’s used, converted, referenced and expressed is the engagement of body dynamics and performative time. I am not saying that the performance artists’ are to be celebrated for this reason, just stating the kind of intense involvement present in it. If I attack the audience in between my performance they can’t say anything to me.

During Pagan Festival in Kochi, there was an uproar saying I literally tried to ignite the space and was verbally attacked saying there were a lot of priceless works which could’ve been destroyed. But I just said one thing if lighting up space was part of my performance I would’ve done that.

I am reminded of Douglas’ work “You Killed Me”, a powerful one in that it was placed just outside during one of his solo shows in front of the gallery. Nobody dared to touch it. Art is a political dialogue, a political practice and whatever is right for it has to be done. That is why when a knife is handed over you just slip into a trance-like state. We don’t think anything else during that point in time.

(This is a two-part series.  The second part of the interview will be published next Monday ie. 18 Feb 2019)

Image courtesy: Murali Cheeroth
Profile Pic: Mathrubhumi Lit Fest @Dwijith

Body as a Mediating Element - Murali Cheeroth on Performance Art (Part 2)

February 17, 2019, 9:32 pm

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This is the second part of the interview that was published last week. Click HERE to read the First part.

Murali Cheeroth

Deepa: I am reminded of the performances of Marina Abramovic. The ones I have seen most is perhaps hers. Whether it’s with Ulay in “Rest Energy” or “Rhythm 0” and all her other performances she places herself in situations of extreme endurance, the acceptance of physical violation as if she wants to test how much self-affliction can be endured; the limit of it.

M.Cheeroth: Performance art has various traditions in it. The works of Abramovic and Patty Chan are mostly issues related to gender, spiritualism and matters connected to that. I would like to recount one of the recent accounts of a Russian activist-performance artist, Petr Pavlensky. People usually notice a protest when it’s done collectively as a mass. Here, it just shows how an individual can make a powerful impact with Pavlensky’s nude performance in front of the Russian Secretariat by nailing his testicles to the Red Square. It is a challenge to the police and the officials and the law and justice. The life of the artist is perilously at stake. People like Pavlensky cannot be moved, a mass can be made to flee by firing or something but to move someone like Pavlensky the nail has to be pulled out. This single performance made the world aware of those critical issues and triggered the discussion internationally. At another instance, he also performed by wrapping himself with barbed wires and the police couldn’t do a thing to remove him which obviously wasn’t an easy task. They had to bring cutting tools to release him out. He is single-handedly and powerfully challenging the State and the System. From mass-level to individual-level, the protest turned out to be a potent one in recent times. The performance is called “Man and Might”. There are many cases registered in Pavlensky’s name in many countries. I would say he is one of the great role models and inspiration. Such prevailing impact can be brought about only through performance and is not possible through some other medium like painting.

Deepa: Physicality, being in the moment, temporal and immediate are some of the key factors to the soul of this form. How do you think that this art would withstand the test of time? Do you believe in leaving such footprints? (Of course, there’s videography yet...there’s a kind of ephemeral aspect to it.).

M.Cheeroth: I don’t believe in documenting and archiving my work, but, it happens, as part of the current technological era we are living in.

From Colombo Art Biennale 2016

Deepa: Depending on what you explained earlier about body and space, all the components that you mentioned were realized in “Memoir/Collecting the Artists”, it probably came a full circle there. Tell us something about that performance of yours held in the Kerala Museum.

M.Cheeroth: That was one of my favourite performances. When I started it out I never knew that it would take such an innovative intensity. As a student, I thought I will do what I can when the Kerala History Museum reached out to me and not many art collectors were there at that point in time when we started. During those days, the idea of contemporary art museum did not exist in Kerala. There are many personal notes too like with Somnath Hore, K G Subramanyan, Ganesh Pyne. Beyond that, the relationship with all these artists was a great learning experience and they had provided qualitative time which aided my personal growth as well. It all started with my connection there.

We never knew the business aspect of the museum at that point. But when the concept of the museum was beginning to take shape for the first time in Kerala, we were pretty excited. My relationship with, be it the Founder of the Museum or the artists they were more on a personal level than as a mere mediator. Mr. Madhavan Nayar was said to be a strict person but with us, he was always simple. In our early days, he used to place the money in between the pages of the books and used to gift it on occasions instead of handing it over by hand. He used to extend that kind of respect to us. It was after 10-20 years that the Curator asked to present a program where I was to talk about the works presented in the Museum since I was part of establishing it. It was then the performance evolved and I thought about how to bring about freshness and a variation in presenting it and the ‘Walk Through’ materialized.

Not many artists have been part of such museum production initiatives, luckily I got such a chance and to reinvent such a space with the curator. There didn’t arise any need to discuss the process on how to go about it because all these works went through our hands during the selection itself and so it did have our aesthetics, negotiations and encounters. Each work had its own story to narrate and I just used that poetically, that’s all. The audience was a part of it and probably the audience turned out to be more of a performer than I was. The entire story took one hour and no one left in between and later everyone, even many artist friends approached and appreciated me. It was autobiographical and I have used a story-line that not many people knew about. The mindset of the collector, how artists finally bring their work to the museum collection; I was able to tap into their heart-beat and gain insight into it by being part of the selection process. With that insight, I, as a performer, was trying to reinterpret and retell that entire story. It was more like a continuous engagement with space and art objects as well as reinventing the entire narration of making a museum with museum painting being part of it along with the beauty and pain of art making. Now, I have an existence as a performer as well apart from being a selector.

('Memoir/Collecting the Artists' - the performance walkthrough can be viewed in these links - Memoir-Part1 and Memoir-Part2 by Madhavan Nayar Foundation)

 From Memoir at Kerala Museum, Edapally

Deepa: Do you feel that an artist is a conduit?

M.Cheeroth: More than having a kind of feel, it’s continuously having that kind of experience. When you see the artwork and when doing the artwork, there arises a creative surplus...that surplus is what takes you from a conceived idea to an explorative state. If that surplus isn’t there, then it would only make the work dry. That creative surplus is what gives us delight. The continuous activation of this experience is what makes the artist vibrant and on the move.


Deepa: Is it painting or performance where you feel more at ease with the artist in yourself?

M.Cheeroth: Painting is a studio based activity and in that studio-based activity, during the preparation, probably I am a performer. Once the painting goes out of your hand, I am just a person responsible for its creation. But as a performer, you are in the complete experience of it. The success and failure that you encounter in performance are not the same when it comes to painting. There’s a natural element of performance in the preparatory process of painting; you become emotionally engaged and that is translated in the work as well. But once it is packed and leaves the gallery, the engagement ends and the translation comes to a halt. As a performer, the engagement is possible anytime, anywhere. Also, we can bring about all the political dialogues in our performance.

In one of my performances at the Morni Hills Biennale, I used my bag which I had been using for some months with all the bills and tablets and everything else stacked in there. I just emptied the contents onto the table for the audience - for them to see all the objects used during all that time – each object, the imagination of objectifying and how it politically influences my life and the consequent evaluation of why it’s being used like why am I using ayurvedic tablet and negating allopathic medicine? How I organically conserve my body? etc. We can create many such dialogues.

Deepa: Tell us something about “Mind Games”, your recently held show in New Delhi?

M.Cheeroth: It was part of the group show called “Voiceover” curated by Meena Vari. The protagonist is me and it is a faithful search of self-awareness in an urban landscape representing a character who looks back at a lifetime of political activism and politically intrinsic life; a perspective. Images hover in the mind and hence the name.It predominantly questions the political situation of the times.

Pages from my Silent Mind Games/5.6x14ft/Acrylic on canvas/2018

Deepa: You completed your MFA in Santiniketan. The system there is entirely different from the regular fine arts colleges anywhere in India (though the scenario is changing now). How different is it do you think? What is your thought on the current educational scenario particularly with respect to Fine Arts? How engaging and enriching is the teaching-learning process today? Are the students well-equipped to start a career in their chosen path by the time they step out of the colleges?

M.Cheeroth: It’s a really good question. These days I am working a lot at an educational level particularly in architecture. This is a time when we are reinventing and bringing together the basic foundation courses in architecture trying to bring about a difference. In many schools where I have taught, we have brought together 2-3 subjects, integrated it and have come up with a Common Integrated Studio. The base for all these springs from Santiniketan. There we were continuously questioning dialectic and materialistic values of life. If we fail to process that we would never be able to stay there even for a month. Instead, we need to focus on the learning process, learning from life - each and every observation like even the dropping of a flower while walking can cause a lovely sensation and how the sun lights up the land each morning. Throughout the year even in summer, you will find flowers there. In each season the landscape responds and it is manifested beautifully. We enjoyed this during our education there and this experience enriched us once we left the place and provided a positive learning state.

Teachers like KGS, Somnath Hore, Nirmalendu Da have helped us to clear our day-to-day confusions and dialogues that now we can clearly capture the basic skill set, Knowledge, conceptual areas etc. needed for the overall development of a student. This is one of the greatest endowments received from Santiniketan and it is the product of the educational quality of Santiniketan. When we look at micro-macro family setups, these days, in nuclear families communications, challenges, critical meetings, cognitive aspects etc. within the family being absent raises the students to be selfish. Being brought up in such nuclear families makes the students lack social challenges, critical thinking and the like. So when such students enter a college for education and are in this space, they tend to respond negatively from the onset because they may not be able to mingle properly, may lose spontaneity to act and many would have cognitive behavioral disorders - they may be dyslexic, many suffer from insomnia. To some students, the impact of “No” also takes on a dangerous one as they fail to realize the real sense of it. So we need to coordinate really smoothly and well to bring together architectural design and art because architecture and art have the ability to engage...through this engagement the critical thinking, evading social fears, taking up challenges, cognitive development, imagination, etc. can be nurtured. It is based on this study the first year foundation course has been co-ordinated. 

It has been found successful and is being appreciated by many major architectural institutions and we have been called for presentations. People have started realizing the importance and value of such an education. That recognition has been possible because of Santiniketan. Whatever flaws were there in our (Kerala’s) art educational system at that time – the merits and demerits – and what to rectify were also made aware because of Santiniketan. It is an institution that has stood the test of time and has contributed immensely.

From Colombo Art Biennale 2016

Deepa: One performance of yours that had the greatest impact on your art and life (probably it was the most critical one in your life that changed your perspective, your insight, your root deepened in the field) and a performance of another artist that influenced you the most?

M.Cheeroth: Boris Nieslony, Petr Pavlensky – he has greatly influenced me; immensely daring, Patty Chan, Marina Abramovic to a certain extent, Joseph Beuys’ contribution is huge...it’s extremely difficult to pinpoint one. Performance art can’t be anchored at a single point within a structure. Performance art that is connected to activism is what interests me more and not just a body expressing. It needs to propagate and carry forward ideas.

Regarding mine, there are many instances that really influenced me...in one of the public spaces during a performance in Chandigarh, the urban crowd challenged a lot entering into the space, and causing a lot of disturbance but the security guards who watched it all later came, hugged me and said, “You did well that such matters are brought to light in public. It’s a huge thing.” The way they hugged and mentioned that moved me.  Similarly in Bengaluru too, after a performance, some people from the audience and a caretaker and his family from the nearby construction building came and appreciated a lot. There have been many such beautiful moments and experiences when least expected people approach you. Many often come and ask questions too. With each performance, we become a different person. We get to know ourselves more. We realize that every stance, our body, every minute expression, even silence has so much importance attached to it and can be read closely as well. It is amazing actually.

Deepa: In your own words “Building up art practice as a sustainable livelihood model in a country where art market conditions are not very favourable / supportive to young budding artists was the most difficult challenge that me or any Indian artist face.” What else would you like to add to it?

M.Cheeroth: I think I will go back to one of my favourite teachers, Somnath Hore, who once asked my plan after BFA. I said that I may look for a job or that I may join MFA. To which he replied (the gist of which was something like) - Do your work. Work is important. Everything else should coincide with your work; work until you gain that consciousness. Only then will you realize that our life moves forward accordingly. When you indulge in other meaningless things, you deviate from art. Art is our constant companion, our friend...work until it becomes that.

Format your life accordingly and it will move forward consequently. When you start realizing that, you will understand that the greatest thing in your life is how you synchronize your entire life with that activity. Once you get that, your life will go on smoothly. That is where day-to-day challenges and sustainability arise.  I have noticed one thing be it KGS or Somnath Hore, they will be working all day long in their studios. Anybody who requires their assistance approaches them in their studios. They don’t move out. To make art a way of life is the greatest challenge and not how many likes one gets on Facebook, or your picture in the newspaper, or the number of shows one has been part of. Art is always there with you everything else that appears in Page 3 is transient.

Still from the recent video ‘The Pledge’

Deepa: What are the new works you are engaged in right now?

M.Cheeroth: I am engaged in painting right now. Performances are also on the way, immediately. I was part of the discussions at the Mathrubhumi Literature Festival that was held recently in Thiruvananthapuram.  It was about the political challenges of our times.
I have been invited to B V Doshi’s Vastu Shilpa Foundation who will be conducting an International Studio with students from the University of Michigan and from India. The Studio is entitled "At the Cusp of Land and Water". It’s from 26 to 28 Feb and from 4 to 6 March 2019.

You can reach Murali Cheeroth at cheerothmurali@gmail.com

I am assured that this interview will be beneficial to all the students of art who wish to know about this genre and to the fellow artists and of course everyone else who would like to have an idea of what goes on in the art world particularly the work and process of an eminent artist like Murali Cheeroth.

Part of this conversation was by email and part of it was recorded which was then translated, transcribed and edited by me. Thanks to Murali Cheeroth, for the enlightening conversation that made this interview possible.  I sincerely hope that I have been able to do complete justice here. 

Hope you found this interview useful and informative. You can send your feedback to mail.huesnshades@gmail.com.

Image courtesy: Murali Cheeroth

14 Inspirational Voices - International Women's Day

March 7, 2019, 9:00 pm

≫ Next: The Seeker of Light - Tom Vattakuzhy (Part 1)

≪ Previous: Body as a Mediating Element - Murali Cheeroth on Performance Art (Part 2)

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Today is International Women’s Day. A day to focus on Women’s rights, discrimination against women and girls so on and so forth. In some countries, it is supposed to be a holiday while in most parts it is largely ignored. Though I tend to believe that this happens when we reduce such imperative everyday facets to just one day it also becomes a reminder of the sacrifice and courage the women before us endured and revealed. Each day is a Woman’s day and it is a celebration of her talents, dreams, aspirations, courage, and perseverance. Today in Hues n Shades, I am celebrating it with some super-talented, gorgeous women in the field of arts with their inspirational ‘voices’. They have stood the test of time and defined their sacred space. There are many more women across the globe who inspire one another every day. It is a celebration of all those known and unknown, legends and legends-in-the-making, beautiful souls. It is also a door ajar for the young to stride.

“Feet, what do I need them for if I have wings to fly?” ~ Frida Kahlo

Each woman, today, has the potential to fly, she only needs to realize it. A dream remains a dream when you fail to act upon it and when done alone, the moment you share it with kindred spirits it has the possibility of turning into reality. It becomes a collective dream. Each one of the incredible women has stressed here that nothing should bind us other than our highest inner truth. Each one of us has a heap to offer, it's not mere "ambition"; it's abiding by our inner voice, just being true to ourselves. As Anais Nin points out life does shrink and expand in proportion to one’s courage.

“I matter. I matter equally. Not ‘if only’, not ‘as long as’. I matter. Full Stop” – Chimamanda Adichie

14 Inspirational Voices:

Tanya Abraham - Curator, Kashi Art Gallery/Founder-Director of TAOS | Kochi

"I see art as a means of expression and a tool for change. Creativity is key in the 21st century, to facilitate human expression, understand conceptualization and encourage innovative thinking. We often tend to underestimate the power of the arts. Imagination and Creativity are, in truth, an important part of human life-Just like the need for prayer is. We can’t ignore art. It is a vital component of a healthy human life. When I am able to use art and work with artists to express, create change or to exhibit talent, it empowers me. My work at The Art Outreach Society is the testimony to my belief that creativity can change lives. Art on its own is empowering. When I indulge in it, there arises a sense of satisfaction which emerges from oneness with art."

Seema Kohli– Contemporary Visual Artist | New Delhi

"I think being a woman is just gender and it has made no difference in my perception of art. I paint to introspect, to answer my queries, my quest. But that doesn’t stop viewers or critics to see me as a certain gender. As an artist, I paint the feminine, the energy that is prevalent in all of us and is constantly expanding, creating and positively recreating this and many other universes. I paint the stories of sharing one single womb, through which we all have emerged, we are a part of the same single space having the same consciousness; so why this despair? Why these differences? Why these wars?"

Gitanjali Kolanad - Writer and Choreographer | London

"Art-making, as far as I know, anything about the process, is just a certain mode of attention, not letting the world go by in a stream, but being receptive to what it is always offering, and then letting that elicit wonder, questions, confusion. When I was a dancer that was an awareness from inside a moving body shaping patterns of movement. Now the struggle is to bring sensations into a form that can be put into words. But I still try to stay out of my own way as much as possible, to let forces beyond my conscious control take over. Being a woman is simply how I am an embodied being in the world. I find it impossible to isolate any quality, including in my art making, that is 'me' that is not also 'woman'."

Cecilia Levy – Paper Artist | Sweden

"Art is my life. It’s my passion and what keeps me happy and sane. It’s also my job and the main source of income, which means a somewhat strained economy that can be stressful at times. Being a full-time artist means giving up on the security of employment and a steady income. But it also means doing what you’re best at and loves most. My husband (also an artist) and I made an active choice many years ago. Being a female artist in the contemporary art scene today (how do you see yourself): The internet has brought the art world to me and my art into the world. Without social media I don’t think I could have persevered, my audience is mainly international. I’m extremely grateful for the internet, FB and IG. I am grateful every day for being able to do what I do, being exactly where I am, right here, right now. This fills me with immense joy. "

Ruchika Wason Singh - Visual Artist, Independent Researcher and the Founder of A.M.M.A.A | New Delhi 

"As a woman, an artist and a mother, I see my identities intertwined. My struggle has been to find a balance between the artistic and the personal domains in my life. This had led me to initiate A.M.M.A.A. Through my project A.M.M.A.A. - The Archive for Mapping Mother Artists in Asia, I seek to find space for voicing maternal experiences, creating opportunities and platforms for modules of art, for myself and for others. These modules are structured to encourage mother artists, whose commitments to their families require a more flexible model of creative platforms, which A.M.M.A.A. is aimed at. Through mapping, visibility and mobility, A.M.M.A.A. seeks to empower the female artists in Asia and those of the Asian diaspora."

Wyanne Thompson – Artist | Atlanta-U.S

"For me, Art is my way of life. It takes care of me, heals me and allows me to share myself with the world. I’ve worked as a full-time artist for the past 25 years. I never paid much attention or thought much about being a “female artist”. I know many would argue that there has not been enough focus on female artists. And I have seen it first hand in the contemporary art world. But, for me...I never really identified as a “female artist”. I have just always felt that I was an artist, and gender was not an issue. I consider myself lucky to do what I love every day. It feeds my soul and empowers me. I feel that art had a direct influence on my ability to fight and beat cancer. It is my passion and my healer, and fulfillment. Then to be able to share my art with others for them to experience, has to be one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever experienced."

Dr. M.Balamani - Art Historian-Critic & Cultural Analyst | Baroda

"I started learning painting as a hobby by the time my children started going to school. Incidentally, I learned about Art History & Aesthetics, a specialized subject in this field and joined the Master’s curriculum immediately. Whether field has accepted my writings on art as an art critic or the writing on art is suitable to my aptitude I have no idea. Thinking and writing about art, talking and lecturing about art has been taking me to those undiscovered thoughts of my heart. I started enjoying deeply. It has given me the opportunity to excel in academics too to acquire my doctorate degree combining Art, Culture and day to day aesthetics of life. Years passed and I never realized how many miles I crossed in this path and would love to walk many more such wonders of art."

Radha Gomaty– Painter, Sculptor, Creative Strategist, Writer | Kochi

"INTENSE ENLIVENMENT … those acutely inhabited moments, sharply lived, that came like epiphanies or visitations. This is the same creative zone that both precedes and permeates any artistic work process. It is inherent in the very Ground of just being Alive.  Art is just another one of its many subsets. Today I stand affirmed in my instinctive knowledge that Art is not necessarily objects-painting, music, sculpture, films...whatever it may be that one makes. Art is that process by which one keeps one's being in sparkling order, vulnerable receptive open cleared backed with the courage to walk the thin line, no matter what the circumstance. If one accomplishes this hack, then one can do anything with it or just be ...No matter what one does with it, there is this strong possibility that it invariably will be powerful, beautiful, inspiring and deeply effective."

Liz Ramos-Prado – Visual Media Artist | Peru

"For me, art is an essential component of our lives; it is a powerful force of expression and communication that drives emotion, ideas and intention in all of its different manifestations. In a world where individuality and the egocentric notion of “self” reign, Arts contribute to creating a sense of identity, questioning our condition of humans and reminding us the importance of being genuinely connected as a society. As an artist, I see myself as a contributor, a provider. I feed myself from nature, people, all the surrounding and life experience itself. Through my pieces, I look to enable people to connect with my works in an exercise of self-reflection about specific matters that will bring a more open dialogue. I look for the singular changes; if my work moves or produce a significant emotion to one single person, then I feel accomplished, that empowers me." 

Nalini Malaviya - Art Consultant, Curator, Writer, Author@Art Scene India | Bengaluru

"I see art as a tool for education, and as a means to spark creativity and innovation. Integrating art appreciation in the school curricula and in a viable form in the work environment can enhance creativity and facilitate the process of learning as well. As a consultant and curator, I work with galleries, contemporary artists and corporates on art projects, which broadly involves conceptualization, curation and writing. I see myself as an enabler – bridging the gap between art, artists and connoisseurs. I read somewhere that when you are offered an interesting opportunity, first say yes and then figure out how to go about it, and I follow that. I try to push myself outside my comfort zone with every new project and to learn along the way. The world is evolving so rapidly and there are new technologies and modalities of working that it is important to stay abreast. I feel, a constant focus on learning can be very empowering, and productive from a career perspective too."

P S Jalaja – Artist | Kochi

"For me, art does not stem from something fictitious but it ensues from the thoughts of our own objective-contemporary lives and the history-experiences of our own times. Research is the most important aspect of my work. It is in continuum with this research that prompts me to investigate my identity as an artist in this social system. It paves the way to understand the secondary status of women, to revolt against the power politics of authority for equal rights by being part of the sorority/community. I engage in compassionate experiments trying to stamp the circumstances, disasters, migrations, celebrations, assaults that people across the globe endure which is portrayed in my “Aalkootam” (Gathering) series. Boundaries are created by man for man. Wars, racial issues, caste-creed insurgencies, civil wars happen across the world and we witness history being repeated sometimes bloodier than before. I would like to appraise my art in the context of social responsibility. Art happens to be my medium where I move from one work to another with the intention of leading it to a healthy discussion of advancing to a different world unitedly and well-planned with love and imagination."

Ruby Jagrut– Artist, Natural Dyes exponent,Trustee Abir | Ahmedabad

How does your gender matter when it comes to art! I think we all have to do our journey on our own. Art has the power to bind us irrespective of everything. Art is largely the manifestation of emotions, experiences and ideas one feels. Contemporary art has broken stereotypes and moved away from traditional ways of expression. Art can’t be seen in isolation from oneself. I found my solace in paintings and the process of extracting colour out of vegetables and minerals. I find it therapeutic. The subtleness of colour keeps me amused every time I paint. I am available to my canvas with my vulnerabilities, childlike eagerness and honesty. We have to constantly seek inspiration, be greedily aware and available to our environment. Earning about new pigments, experimenting with new ideas empower me. Reading, listening to music, dancing and indulging with different art form helps me understand the complexity of the expression.

Priti Vadakkath – Visual Artist | Kochi

Art is a means of self-expression and communication. The process is also highly therapeutic for me, often my essential toolkit for survival. I am an artist because I have something to say, something to contribute to in the discussion and probably influence or convince my audience. There are varied roles I assume every day - as a mother, a wife, a daughter, a caregiver to a child with special needs. I believe all my ideas come from within and is informed by my immediate family, environment and the social context of my existence. Within all these spaces that I occupy, is an artist who interacts with, extracts from, and intervenes in society through her art and in doing so I continue to find fulfillment and empowerment.

Marie-Noëlle Wurm – Artist, Illustrator, Art Teacher | France

A big part of my process is trying to get to the truths at our core: connected to a natural world that is so much bigger than us, and to an infinite richness within—our capacity for self-awareness, for creativity, for growth. Art is an emotional language that connects us more deeply to ourselves, including the parts we shy away from: the sadness, the fear, the hurt—and shining a light on the darkness is how we transcend it. I’m able to do so much more than most women have, across millennia or around the world. I don’t take that for granted. I create art to give space to emotions, to our hidden selves—to reclaim space, a voice, a self. I try to speak my truth, and my life as a woman will always inform that truth. My hope is that it will inspire others to speak theirs. Art is a deeply personal journey but it’s also deeply universal—and that’s why it’s so powerful. In my own way, I try to honor that.

Let me conclude with these short verses:

The Seeker of Light - Tom Vattakuzhy (Part 1)

May 26, 2019, 11:30 pm

≫ Next: The Seeker of Light - Tom Vattakuzhy (Part 2)

≪ Previous: 14 Inspirational Voices - International Women's Day

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Tom Vattakuzhy– a printmaker, illustrator, painter or rather a story-painter  – is a magnificent human-being first and foremost. Humble, down-to-earth and soft-spoken his works imbue a sense of those traits accompanied by an air of melancholic lyricism with a touch of lustrous, mystic divinity most ethereal. A well-read man with strong and candid views as a detached observer gives him a resilient foothold in our current times when people seem so biased and judging all along. A confident painter who feels that he doesn’t have a way with words and yet when talking to Tom I noticed a unique sense of humour and his way of satire is quite brilliant. He doesn’t mix it up with his emotions. Tom has exhibited widely and has won merits, scholarships and accolades including the State Award- Kerala Lalithakala Akademi Award, AIFACS(All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society) Award, New Delhi and the Haren Das Award, Kolkata. He has been fortunate enough to be guided and moulded by doyens like K G Subramanyan, Somnath Hore and M V Devan. Tom has taught in prestigious institutions before assuming the role of a full-time artist. The most distinguishing feature of his works is the effect of light on the characters and their surroundings. Even an ordinary subject assumes divinity and garners reverence. There is a sense of harmony even amid suffering, a kind of poetic justice seems to be pervading, sometimes pathetic fallacy wherein one finds not only the “aura-emitting-God-like” yet unsure humans but also its most humble animal subjects and inanimate objects. Tom once mentioned that it is 'Humanism' that he is interested in among all –isms and it stands true in his portrayals.

Note: Please click on the images for an enlarged view.

Tom Vattakuzhy

Deepa: How did your journey as an artist begin?

Tom Vattakuzhy: My Journey into an artist’s life was not an easy one. There was no beaten path for me to pursue. So I had to try out different paths as trial and error to reach the field of art. There was generally a lack of orientation and the right people to guide and even if it did, perhaps, the other straitjacketed circumstances wouldn’t have made it possible. So my initiation into art was mostly a fly by the seat of my pants. I, first, did a diploma course from a local art school and then studied at a couple of other art schools, spent a few years doing commission works like portraits, billboards, illustrating periodicals, etc. Later, I got a job as an art teacher and worked for some years and eventually quit my job and joined a bachelor’s degree at Santiniketan. That was in 1991. Completed my Masters from M.S University of Baroda in 1998. In retrospect, I think it is a paradox that I quit my job to study art while many are studying to get a job.

The Seeker of Light - 2
Oil on Canvas-67x61cm

Deepa: You are a print-maker by education. Then why did you shift your focus to painting and illustration? Do you still engage in print-making?

Tom Vattakuzhy: No, I no longer engage in printmaking. True, it was printmaking I did for both graduation and post graduation. I opted it primarily because of my financial constraints. Printmaking was the only less expensive course of study. Painting incurred a lot of expenditure for colour, canvas, and all. Sculpture also was not much different. Money was needed when it comes to casting. With printmaking, I had to bear nothing other than the cost of printing paper. The department would supply the rest. Secondly, printmaking was a discipline I was not at all exposed to and had no clue about its technical nuances. Santiniketan being the premier institution in India that offers a specialization in Printmaking at the graduation level I thought of learning it from there. Thanks to Somnath Hore and his untiring efforts Santiniketan had a well-reputed printmaking department. When I come to think of it, even at the time of Nandalal Bose, prominence was given to printmaking as perhaps they thought of tapping its virtue of multiplicity to make art reach out to more people.  Anyway, my seniors there like K.K. Muhammed, Murali Cheeroth were also there learning printmaking and may have encouraged me at some level.  I did not continue printmaking as on one hand, I felt it is very tiring and taxing and on the other hand well-equipped studios are very few and far between.

Untitled

Etching-50x50cm-1997

Deepa: Is there a narrative in the making even before you start painting or is it more of an intuitive process of evolving?

Tom Vattakuzhy: I think it is difficult to give a linear description of how it happens. When you drive a car, you are not bothered about how or in what all combinations its inner mechanism works to take you where you want to go. It somehow works and you drive, you focus on the road rather than its inner mechanism. So is the case with the working process. However, for me, this intuitive-evolving process happens even before I start painting. I haven’t really investigated how it arises. I then enter into a sort of incubation period and if the urge to paint it still persists in me I set out to make preliminary studies until I feel confident to paint. Even while painting, certain improvisations may happen may be in the colour scheme or in form or in the focus or so. It is an ongoing process until I complete work. I do not approach a canvas with a blank mind and arrive at something in the process of painting.

Evening
Oil on canvas-155x193cm

Deepa: The characters and incidents in your painting seem to be from around you, from your everyday life inclusive of animals as in U. Nandakumar’s story 'Damayanthikkadhakal' and elderly people as in ‘Innale Vannavar’, 'Ninneyorkkunnu Njan' etc. There is a lot of emotion and sensitivity along with a harmonious existence. What makes you choose the subjects? What aspects interest you? Is it because of the stories on which you get to illustrate or are you generally an animal-nature lover? Are you consciously attributing a sense of harmony with an underlying tinge of anguish which is evident in many of your works?

Tom Vattakuzhy: In fact, I approach them as I do a painting; there is not much of an essential conflict either in approach or in the working process. That is why I prefer to call them “story-paintings” rather than illustrations. I do not think of it as a visual translation of a particular scene or character in the story. I tend to go to the essence of it -- the spirit of it, ponder over it – ponder over the impression it has left on me and I start off from there. And in the process, when it comes through me certain elements of ‘me’ will also get mixed with it. And it is perhaps in this mixing or melding that a sense of anguish and what you call, animal-nature love and all come into play. So for me, illustration is a visual supplement or interpretation of the core of the story. And it can have a dual existence. On one level, it can be a stand-alone painting and on the other, when kept alongside the story, it can establish a kind of insightful complementary relationship with one another. The only hitch in doing illustrations is perhaps that there is often a constraint of time; you may not get an unqualified time span to conceive and ponder over a work as you wish; there is always a deadline.

'Damyanthikkadhakal'-Story-painting

Deepa: Now that you mention about the process of illustration, you have illustrated the novels of eminent authors like M T Vasudevan Nair, P. Padmarajan, N.P. Mohammed, C. Radhakrishnan in magazines like Bhashaposhini, Mathrubhumi weekly, even ‘Aithihyamala’. How were these experiences? Do you feel restricted in your work when you illustrate for others? What is your thought about illustration in general?

Tom Vattakuzhy: In fact, illustrations had an immense influence on me in my toddling years in art. I had done a lot of drawings after the works of Namboothiri and A.S. Nair in those days. I suppose anyone of my age with an artistic inclination must have taken a leaf out of their book at some point of time or the other. I was enticed by Namboothiri’s minimal lines evocative of actions, gestures and expressions so effortlessly, while A.S. astonished me with his ability in creating certain feel and mood through his generous seemingly impulsive, unrepressed hatchings. I mention it now from the impression their works left on me long back. They were relatively popular among the common people also. I remember people discussing their drawings in the library in my local town. Then, of course, M.V. Devan was also quite known for his relentless discourses on art and the illustrations he did earlier. Anyway, I am saying all this to point out that illustrating was regarded as a top-tier art practice. And perhaps that was the only thing people got to see as creative in those days. Although the winds of change were slowly forming around the corner, it couldn’t pick its way through the society at large. I began to do Illustrations around 1988 or so. The first novel I illustrated was ‘Karunalayam’ by K.Surendran. Then I continued illustrating for others as you mentioned. Incidentally, I remember the thrill I had when the handwritten letter from the celebrated writer M T reached me inviting me to illustrate in the Mathrubhumi. 

The common practice of illustrating in those days was to draw the characters or scenes or situations described in the literature. So, I also followed suit. Illustrating novels were really challenging because you had to draw often the same characters, the leading ones in the novel, several times and in several situations. What I used to do was to by-heart such characters by drawing them from various angles at the very start itself, so that I could draw them in any way. The only relaxation was when I could move over to other casual characters or situations that I don’t have to repeat. Despite all these, what gave me a ‘kick’ in doing them was the liberty I could take in the drawings. But later on, when my perceptions on art gradually forked off doing illustrations of that mode began to weigh me down; it felt like I have to switch over to another mental framework to do that. So I lost interest and discontinued. Then it was of late I resumed it in a way that does not call for a mental conflict or switching over.

Today, I think there is some discord about the merit of illustrations as fine art among artists. They hold the view that it is a lesser art as the seed of the idea for the work is not purely of the artist, but risen out the story and done with an end to give a visual explanation of the text. So the authenticity of its vision or the artist’s subjectivity is at stake. Yes, coming to think of it in those terms, illustrations may not measure up to the notions of such tight-laced subjectivity. Though we cannot go back in time, it would be amusing to imagine at leisure times what the Masters of European art and Indian Miniature Artists would have done. Anyhow, I guess that art will not sustain without it having a bearing in the society; it cannot just be of a niche group of galleries, dealers and auction houses alone. Art needs to be brought close to life and the ethos of it. So, to that end, to reach out to people, to facilitate visual literacy, I feel illustrations can go a long way. It was with that end I ventured into it in the recent past. Whatever said and done, I hope you won’t fault me in saying that Illustrations bring art to daily life and so it is a form of public art.  But unfortunately, not much enthusiasm is seen in fostering it, even when we lament over the paucity of the public appeal for art. It is often done as an occupation, not as a passion. That is what hampers it. However artists like Bhagyanath, Bara Bhaskaran, Sunil Asokapuram, K sheriff, Devaprakash, etc. are giving a new face to it. Each one has a distinct approach to their work and I think they are bringing a welcome change to it.

An earlier illustration

Deepa: “His works take root from the existential angst especially that of the middle class, upon the present day socio-cultural milieu.” I had read that about you. Would you like to elaborate on that?

Tom Vattakuzhy: I don’t know if it can be taken as an overarching statement to describe my works. But, yes.... there is an undertone of that kind in my works. You also mentioned about the element of anguish in my works while discussing earlier. In my college days, I was drawn to a kind of existential philosophy of some sort and liked the works of Giacometti, Ingmar Bergman, Albert Camus, Hermann Hesse and the like. For example, the lithograph titled ‘Wouldn’t it be the most painful experience, if, in the last moments on the cross you knew that your life, sufferings and torments, were futile?’ had that sort of a bearing. There is a vein of an introspective quest for the meaning or essence of life pulsing through my works. The chasm between the real and ideal, lived and the preached has also been a point of concern leading to the fundamental questions like ’who am I’?

For T. Sreevalson's 'Karppuramanam'

Deepa: I find poetry infused in your paintings - a kind of lyricism juxtaposed with melancholy particularly in “Song of the Dusk” series. Why the melancholic strain? Would you like to talk about the series?

Tom Vattakuzhy: I haven’t done several series of paintings on a particular theme or subject continuously so far. It hasn’t occurred to me that way. I haven’t tried to force it out of me either. I think that is not the way it should be, at least for me. The first painting in that series was done in around 2010 when I was in Qatar. It reminds of the kind of Kafkaesque evenings of loneliness and alienation I got past in the wilderness of the late evening desert. The other one has more connection with my childhood memories. The next one I did in the same title was a large painting. This was at the time the news was rife of a young girl brutally gang-raped and murdered in Delhi in 2012. I used the title ‘Song of the Dusk’ as a generic title for a few of my other works that followed at different times as there was a common thread connecting them on some level. That could be the air of melancholy that permeates in all of them - a melancholy tinged with a sense of eerie but ethereal feel.

Song of the Dusk -3'
Oil on Canvas-232x146cm

Deepa: Some paintings seem to imbue spiritual undertones and you sure have mentioned about your religious upbringing and being inspired by Altarpieces. How much of a religious person are you? What is spirituality according to you? Or are you more of a mystic?

Tom Vattakuzhy: Look, if religions foster humanity, love and compassion, and make our world a better place to live I am religious. The element of spirituality in my art practice is not linked with any religious spirituality, though it involves certain qualities of it. It transfigures the ordinary and integrates with myself and my experiences. It is a personal journey, a meditation, a deep listening to myself and the world around me. It is a spiritual act; it makes you feel as though you are in a timeless personal bubble akin to some images in Hieronymus Bosch’s painting ‘The Garden of Earthly Delight’. It is a kind of search for the essence or meaning beneath the surface of things. In that sense, I am a mystic or aspire to be one.

Vision after the Sermon
Oil on canvas-155x193cm

Deepa: In this context would you like to talk about your “The Mystic” for the intriguing effect it has on the viewer?Is “The Mystic” a story-painting of yours illustrated for any particular story? 

Tom Vattakuzhy: I don’t know what impression the viewers may have on this. They view it the way they like and integrate it with their experiences and visions. I think that is the way it should be. So, experiencing a work of art can also be a form of spiritual, contemplative experience. In fact, talking about the motive, it is my younger son who brought me to paint it. He got an apple snail from the brook beside my house and brought it home. He wanted it to move. It didn’t. He grew impatient. He tried to force open its mouth plate but to no avail. He came to me complaining. I told him to leave it alone undisturbed and watch it patiently. After a while, he grumbled that it is too slow. I calmed him down and told him that it is slow because it probably enjoys and experiences every bit of its journey, every grit of sand it inches on. Perhaps what mattered to the snail was not the end but the journey. This is a little conversation I had with him. I think perhaps the painting grew out of it. I remember what my teacher, K.G.Subramanyan, remarked when asked about the motivation behind his works. He said that the motivation is like a stone thrown to the serenity of a water pool causing a series of waves spreading across it. And what appeals to us is not the stone but the waves it creates. So what matters in a work of art is not the stone but the ripples it creates in the mind of an artist.

No, it wasn’t done as a story-painting. It is confusing, isn’t it?  Sometimes viewers have difficulty to discern my paintings from the ones I did for illustrative ends. Since I do not think or approach them differently, it is natural also. But, the medium I use for the story-paintings are often gouache because I can complete a work with a lesser time span.

The Mystic
oil on canvas-116x146cm

Deepa: Getting back to the question of ‘Who am I?’ mentioned earlier, would you relate yourself to being an existentialist? Existentialism vouches for free will and making rational decisions in an irrational world by embracing the nothingness in existence which also involves taking up responsibility for our own actions. You also talked about Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delight” which again points to exercising the free will and its consequences in general terms according to my understanding though it has much deeper sense to it. What I see in your works are more inclined towards the resignation of destiny and an underlying belief in metaphysical principles as opposed to the basic idea of existentialism. Am I wrong in understanding that?

Tom Vattakuzhy: I don’t consciously strive to shoehorn myself into any particular school of philosophical thought. When I paint, I paint; it is an inexplicable intuitive process; it is like a revelation. I haven’t tried to analyze or understand it by the logic of any philosophy as such. However, as you said there may be a sort of metaphysical or transcendental element imbued with an existential attitude in my works. And I assume it might be from the realization that life is so ephemeral or transient like a fleeting light. And that life has no meaning other than the one we give to it. 

'Sakalathinum Porul'-Story-painting-

Deepa: Renaissance influence seems prominent in your works. Would you like to explain why Renaissance in particular?

Tom Vattakuzhy: Coming to think of it, it is not Renaissance artalone I am interested in. I am interested in the works of Pre-Raphaelites, Magic realists, Surrealists, and so on. There is a long list of artists I like. Talking about Renaissance art, there can be remnants of the deep impression it left in me in my adolescent days. Having been a village boy as I am, the chances of getting to see any art in those days were very rare. The museum guide my uncle gave me on his return from Rome with several colour plates of Renaissance art was like a treasure for me. It touched me so deeply. Then a magazine called “Soviet Union” which used to be brought to the local shops chiefly for the purpose of covering the school texts often carried some paintings. This also had an influence over me. When I think of it, there are many memories of that sort. Anyway, what I am trying to say is that the first exposure one gets can have a strong hold on our mind.

Between Strangers
Oil on canvas-148x117cm

Deepa: O yes, on second thoughts your art does relate to Pre-Raphaelites more – the nostalgia and the romanticism, the dreamy yearning like the Pre-Raphaelites, the hues and details, inspired by literature and illustrative in nature.

Tom Vattakuzhy: See, People are free to view it the way they like. And if you discern some closeness on a certain level with the works of Pre Raphaelites I won’t fault you. I like their works - their psychological approach and the kind of soft spiritual tranquillity in them. Especially the works of Rossetti, Edward Brune Jones, etc. can be seen as an example. But I don’t think there is any conscious effort on my part to bring my works in line with theirs. Of course, they are great painters. Their works have a sort of mesmerizing quality and I think a good work of art should have it. It is not about the formal or technical virtuosities of a work of art. I respond to paintings that deal with people and their feelings. As I said earlier, I look at a broad range of painters and I keep adding to it. I don’t have a particular artist or a group to point out as my sole mentor or model. In fact, all artists are my masters, I suppose. There is always something or the other I have learned from them.  If I say a few names from our young practicing artists I like the works of Aji V.N, Umesh, Sujith S.N, Ratheesh T and so on. These are just a few names that popped up in my mind. There are more.

Story-painting(7)

Deepa: You draw inspiration from Masters like Holbein, Klimt, da Vinci, Duchamp, etc. Was there any specific reason/context that inspired you to allude to their works like “The Ambassadors”, “The Kiss”, “The Last Supper” and “Death of Art”?

Tom Vattakuzhy: Actually, all the works, excluding the ‘Death of Art’, were done for illustrative ends. This was a visual strategy I adopted. First of all, certain literature carried an obvious echo of certain paintings, some alluded it while some called forth memories of certain paintings. Illustration being a kind of public art, I thought an allusion to familiar paintings would arouse curiosity to the illustration and thereby to its literature. And then, for the essence or vibrations of different stories are different, there is a perennial need to seek ways and means to capture the feel or experiences that its literature inspires. I took it as a challenging exercise as it helped me in some way to invent certain visual syntax and to widen my visual vocabulary.

Death of Art

Oil on canvas-155x193cm

To be continued

Image courtesy: Tom Vattakuzhy

The Seeker of Light - Tom Vattakuzhy (Part 2)

June 2, 2019, 11:30 pm

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This is the second part of the interview. In case you haven't read the first please click HERE.

Note: Please click on the images for an enlarged view.

Tom Vattakuzhy in his Studio

Deepa: How did “Lessons of Life” happen?

Tom Vattakuzhy: I am over fifty now. I have seen many lives - how they lived, how they died and what they left behind. The impetus for these works comes from reflective thoughts on my own lived experiences, the lives I have come to see around and the values we uphold. We all know and are certain that there is a full stop and we are getting closer to it day by day. Yet, we tend to become aggressively materialistic. We engage in all sorts of vicious vices to win the rat race as though the bliss of life rests on all such things and our life is eternal. I am reminded of Mitch Albom’s ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’. In that, dying Morrie says we all are striving to learn how to live but the biggest learning in life is not how to live, but how to die. Once you know how to die you would know how to live.  I think it carries a message for almost all of us to muse on.  

Lessons of life

Oil on Canvas, 160 x 64 cms

Deepa: The play of light is captivating and dramatic in your works. What makes it interesting, however, is that the light seems otherworldly and doesn’t seem from this part of the world. Why is light such an important aspect in your works? What made you the “The Seeker of Light”? 

Tom Vattakuzhy: I think there is a natural yearning for light in all of us. Haven’t you noticed young children enchanted with light? Look at their toys—they are mostly with flickering light. I think we are wired that way; there is a predilection towards the light. In my childhood days I dreaded darkness, even the darkness under my cot in the early mornings. I used to lie on my bed up till the beam of morning light dropping through the window reached the floor near the cot so that I could jump onto the light and run off to my mother, busy with morning-chores in the kitchen. I remember getting past the deadpan stillness of my solitary noondays watching the patterns of light on the house-courtyard. I have several memories of that kind to recount, memories of different hues and shades; funny it may appear though. Anyway, coming to your question, I think what we need more today is light. True that our modern science and technology has advanced to such a dimension that even midnight can be turned to look like dazzling midday. But, in the course of this progress, we are losing the light – the light within us; our interiors are getting shadier and murkier. If you look around and see what the ever-growing consumer culture does to our social values, cultural values, religious values, etc and see where we are heading to, you will understand it without having me to elaborate on it. So the light I use in my works is not a physical light, at least I am trying to make it so and I don’t know how far I am able to, it is up to the people to judge better.

With the painting ‘The Seeker of Light’ I have certain experiences that brought me to paint it. But I am afraid that would intercept your perceptions on it. You would tend to read my story in it rather than making it your own or linking it with your feelings or experiences. As I said earlier, what we need is the waves, not the stone that caused it.

The Seeker of Light 

Oil on Canvas, 122 x 90 cm

Deepa: One of your paintings that portrayed Mata Hari and which resonated with da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” became quite controversial. What is your thought about that painting?  How did you come to paint that with an allusion to “The Last Supper”?

Tom Vattakuzhy: It was a very unfortunate episode in my life. I was really shocked at the way the scandal brewed and the extent to which it flared up. This was a work I did for a drama that focused on the last days of Mata Hari’s life and her death. She was a Dutch exotic dancer sentenced to death on charges of espionage during the 1^st World War. Paulo Coelho also has written a novel on her titled ‘The Spy’. Incidentally, it was also published in India around the same time. But I could read it only after I did the painting.  Anyhow, the drama I illustrated carried an allusion to the passion of Christ. A discerning reader could see through the veiled layer in its use of biblical language and the sequential development of the events. I had a discussion with its author over his inspirations and thoughts about it even before painting it. I also had done a little research on her and came to the impression that she was essentially a victimized woman. I read about her troubled childhood, the sexual assaults on her, her torturous married life and the death of her child and so on. The survival instinct in her was perhaps so strong that she climbed up in life by hook or crook and became popular as a dancer. What touched me most was her unabated longing for true love. She agreed to work even as a spy; for the permission to enter the enemy-country to be with her injured lover. But even he betrayed her leaving her broken-hearted. So, it was with this brief understanding of her that I began to paint it. There was a flash of thought across my mind that the setting of the drama and the setting of the painting ‘The Last Supper’ is one and the same – a nunnery. The Christ of da Vinci at the most emotional and dramatic moment of his life – the moment of his last meal with his disciples with the impending betrayal and his death on the cross took over my thoughts. I felt it corresponded well, in some essential respect, with the mood and spirit of the drama. So I painted her last meal with an allusion to da Vinci’s painting as a gentle, compassionate and humanistic expression that I could possibly think of to paint a woman who underwent a lot of sufferings at the hands of a patriarchal society. To my line of thinking, I do not see Christ as a picture. Nor do I seek him in a picture. I seek him in essence. I seek him in every human being.  My Christ has no gender, caste or race. He is there in everyone. When my mind fills with compassion, love and humanistic emotions I feel a Christ in me. I look at da Vinci’s Painting as a painting, as a work of art, not as an idol for worship. I haven’t either heard or seen anyone going to the museum to kneel down and pray or worship there.

Mata Hari

Deepa: It was even withdrawn from the stands soon after being published. How would you like to respond to that act? In this context what would you like to say about an artist’s freedom of expression?

Tom Vattakuzhy: To tell you the truth, it shouldn’t have been so because the withdrawal actually amounted to endorsing that the painting was blasphemous. It was a countersign of approval and in effect a promotion for such tendencies towards exercising a dictatorial control over the freedom of expression. I wish media were an open platform for voices from both the secular and religious sides to enable a meaningful discourse. It is only through open discourses that we possibly come to the truth and sort out differences. When I say it, we shouldn’t fail to notice the flip side of it also. Despite its withdrawal on the day of its release itself sensing the distant prospect of controversy, a month-long wide-spread protest was carried out. It actually makes us dubious of its actual motives. When we read this controversy owing to ‘the unflinching fervour of faith’ in line with the series of incidents in the church in the subsequent periods involving the churchmen themselves, I think, the true colour of their ‘zealous religious fervour’ is self-evident. Anyhow, I believe that at a time when darkness comes all around us, media being one of the pillars of democracy, they have a lot to do.

You are well aware of the controversies in Kerala in the recent past. There were a number of people attacked either for their writing or their speech or their political views. M. T. Vasudevan Nair, Kamal, S. Harish, Kureeppuzha Sreekumar, Sunil P. Elayidam - they were all subjected to the fury of intolerance either from the religious side or from the political side. I don’t like to see it in terms of artists’ freedom of expression alone. This ever-growing intolerance towards dissenting voices is a vice invading all realms of life. I remember a quote from George Orwell, “If liberty is to mean anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” Consolidation of fascist tendencies is a clear sign of our weakening democratic values and that is what we are seeing more and more. Our society and social institutions including religion are driven more and more towards amassing money and power. They want only following and songs of praise, no dissenting voices and no questions. When the ones we look up to also act like milk-and-water who will bell the cat is the question for which we do not have a clear answer.

Deepa: Have you worked on self-portraits? Does “The Painting Studio of a Local Artist” allude to yourself?

Tom Vattakuzhy: I haven’t done any self-portraits as self-portraits. I haven’t felt that way. But when I paint figures something of me comes through. People have told me that the figures I paint have something of me remaining hidden somewhere, something not so effable but perceivable. I say it could be my soul. Art is often autobiographical. So it is probable to have some traces of me, though unconsciously, get transferred. I think art cannot be otherwise.

The Painting Studio of a Local Artist

Deepa: Your current work?

Tom Vattakuzhy: It is about Palm Sunday and it is in the process of shaping up. I have just applied the first layer of colour.

Deepa: Do you get time to work on your own paintings other than the illustrations that you are assigned to? Though there may not be any difference in the approach of technique as you mentioned, do you feel emotionally different towards them?

Tom Vattakuzhy: I was not engaged in it on a day in and day out manner. I did not want that either. The one I worked for of late was a monthly literary magazine. So there was no need to break my neck for it. I used to get free time for my works in between. But once I was at it, I had to work like a well-oiled machine to meet the deadline.

Deepa: You were a student of the late Master KGS and you have even written an article on him “KGS ennavanmaram”. What do you think is his influence on you? How have the days in Santhiniketan helped you to mould/evolve you as an artist-person? What do you think is the role of institutions in shaping the artists? What do you think is the difference in Kalabhavan and the regular fine art colleges? If need be, what according to you need to change to help improve the art culture in colleges?

Tom Vattakuzhy: I remember KGS as a committed artist and teacher. By the time I joined he had retired and was continuing there as a professor emeritus. He used to come every day to the campus. His favourite place was the concrete bench under a large tree in front of the graphics department. He did most of his teachings through his informal chatting with students. He loved to talk. His idea of teaching was not focused on transferring the technical skills, but on evolving our artistic sensibility and personal vision. He often communicated it through metaphors or little stories. His concept of art can be abridged to a tree that grows with its taproot embedded in our traditions, and its cultural fabric and secondary roots spreading far and wide to the soils of other cultures assimilating water and nutrients for it to grow. He never tried to mould his students to be the secondary planets that orbit him but inspired them to a larger world for them to learn from and gently suggested possible avenues that better suit their proclivities. He always said that the creative journey of an artist is a personal one and he should seek for ‘a personal ladder, not a public escalator’. I think his teachings on art have contributed to a great deal in laying the foundation to my perceptions of art. However, I must say that by the time I joined much of its ideas had already been eroded.  KGS was the only remaining model of that Modernist movement. Many of the teachers of late generation did not seem to either conform to or measure up to its ideals but maintained a sort of allegiance to it. Many of them went after different priorities or aesthetical approach in their art practice. But they all respected him and his presence gave us a sense of stimulus or safety that children feel when their dad is at home. R Sivakumar, our art history teacher, took a real interest in the detailed study of the Santiniketan initiative as an alternative approach towards Modernism at the time when the East-west schism was at rife in our cultural milieu. I remember I used to cut my scheduled classes to attend his art history lessons for art history students. He is an exemplary art historian. Students used to keep a row of tape recorders before him to record his classes.  Though Somnath Hore was retired by the time I joined, I used to take my works to him for his advice. He was a very frail and silent person who preferred to be away from the glare of any public attention. The major body of his works was on human sufferings and wounds. I still remember what he once told me, “Tom, you have to unlearn all you learned to be an artist. After the unlearning process, something will be left in you as residue. That is what you have internally absorbed, assimilated and has become you.  Begin anew from there.” And I think that holds true when we think of art institutions in terms of its relevance or role in the shaping of an artist;  it leaves a residue in you that you use as the essential nutrient for you to begin, to grow as an artist.

When I ponder over your question about how Kala Bhavana stands different from other fine arts colleges, I don’t think there is anything that makes Kala Bhavana remarkably different today. There may be little shifts and changes here and there in the syllabus, but almost all the fine arts colleges that I know, follow more or less the same Modernist pattern. Of course, there may be differences in the quality of its deliverance and it is dependent on the merit of its teaching faculty. But if we go back to its initial times I think Kala Bhavana had a greater significance in terms of setting up a new model towards art and its learning. This could be a rare happening in the history where an art institution wielding the guiding beacon had an impact, at least to a certain degree, in the course of its cultural history. It set forth a teaching philosophy based on a triangular structure with tradition, originality and nature and did not impose it breathing down the necks of the students, but gave them the freedom to seek out their own ways through their own personal initiation. And it did not seek out to produce professional artists, as is perhaps understood today, and it did not also believe in the making of Art with a capital A. Art was conceived as a kind of cultural activism where the artist engages himself with the life of people and culture around him and bringing art close to their life by making various kinds of artifacts, toys, textiles, utensils, illustrations, public murals, public sculptures, paintings etc. They also conducted fairs to reach out to people I have heard stories of Nandalal even selling his works by the road to the pedestrians at an affordable price. Their whole pursuit was to bring about a new perception of art that would improve the quality of life.

Nandalal Bose held the view that art is something that cannot be taught but learnt by being sensitive to our cultural facts, traditions, living environments etc. So the role of a teacher or an art institution was not to impart the technical skills as it used to be in the earlier times but to sensitize them and to provide them a learning environment for their personalized visual explorations. This view holds true with the conceptual fabric of Modernism as it, by and large, turned its back on the technical virtuosos and the self-expression became the mainstay of a work of art. This shift in concern put the role of an art teacher or the relevance of an art institution under a precarious situation. It may have led many art colleges to stagger for the lack of a charismatic pedagogical methodology and resourceful teachers. It led to an unhealthy situation in many institutions where the teachers tend to shrivel up to a sort of placidity and the students were left to stumble around – all in the name of art being self-expression. This situation may have caused a rift between the students and the teachers where they both become unhappy at each other. This present scenario is getting further worsened with the winds of conceptual art as being an extension of self-expression is gaining momentum and the very purpose of an art institution itself in its existing fashion is in question. So I think there are a lot of issues concerning the actual role or purpose or its functioning that needs to be addressed and I am at loss for any quick fix answer.

'Lessons of Life' - 3

Oil on Canvas, 122 x 90 cm

Deepa: What’s your take on Conceptual art (of today)? Have you tried it? Would you like to?

Tom Vattakuzhy: A few decades ago conceptual art was a remote and distant phenomenon happening somewhere on earth, but today it has become a reality. It has come to our doorstep as a new fashion or trend. This is a new change - a change from art being an object, to art being an idea. From the time art entered a new phase called Modernism, art began to be fractured into a multitude of concurrent movements and gradually to undercut all its traditional standards and values. This reductive or subtractive attitude in search of perhaps, a greater or purer meaning swept art along the path of rebellion and negation of all that went before them and finally to the very negation of art itself. This trajectory of Modernism reminds me of a naughty boy opening all the fleshy layers of an onion to see what is inside. I think it was a wrong turn art took from the early 20^th century onwards where it became an affair of itself and got so embroiled in it that it failed to address the issues of people and keep close to the pulse of life. This lineament of change necessitated an orientation in art history to have access to the works of many of its masters. When you look at literature or cinema for that matter, they also went through the same phases of all the upheavals as we did. But they could stand close to life and influence life whereas art became too self-conscious of itself and embarked on a philosophical query of itself and its self-worth and became an elitist affair. Coming to conceptual art, I do not see it as a breakaway but an extension of Modernism. I remember reading somewhere that the main contribution of art from its modern times to ours is ‘making Raphael into graffiti and graffiti into Raphael’. I think that is where we stand now.

I do not believe that art is in a linear progression from Lascaux to our times. All times have produced great art and if it still inspires and moves us it has a quality that the passing times or changing situations could not wipe out. My interest is to follow what my inner self responds to. I do not want to climb the public escalator, just because so many are climbing on. I prefer to rather step aside and listen to the little murmurs from within and paint as a poet writes poetry or a musician plays music. The music is what matters, not the instrument I used. The instrument is only a vehicle for music, not music. I do not see any intrinsic value or special merit attached to any medium. But I do acknowledge the fact that each medium has its own intrinsic qualities which are not interchangeable. What you can do in one may not be possible with another. It largely depends on the artist and what he has got to convey. As with different tools serve different functions or utilities, different mediums are also well suited for expressing different concerns or ideas. What is achievable with painting may not be possible with an installation or performance art and vice versa. It largely depends on how sensibly an artist chooses his medium to suit what he has in mind. But conceptual art did not come into existence as merely a potential medium of artistic expression, as though it appears to be couched by many today. It began as a reaction against the commoditization of art. It sought to dematerialize art by rejecting any tangible form that can be made into a collector’s item and so it is conceived in a way that it exists only in the minds of a viewer as an idea or a concept, hence its name. It, in fact, effected in evaporating whatever little of aesthetical values and notions of originality left over from its predecessors and making it very democratic where anything goes. This is where the crux of the matter lies. I doubt, how much realistic ground it holds today and also how many of our artists honestly adhere to it. I leave it to the artists themselves to ponder over. To come to think of the art market, it gets hold of anything that yields a profit; even a pack of shit, if its uniqueness and art historical importance can be put in place as a selling point. I am not to fault them because it is only a profit-driven business as in other areas of business. The point that many of the conceptual works that left any tangible remnants are in the collections of whom it is fighting against is where it gets defeated or challenged. Conceptual art has become a collector’s item for its novelty and is being accommodated into the gallery space as just another way of artistic expression. So, conceptual art that broke down the distinction between art and every day could not be free of consumerism against which it is fighting. It has been reduced to only a hypocritical style statement and amounted to only burning down the house to smoke out the rat.

I don’t think anybody would disagree with the fact that the ever-growing capitalistic traits have given rise to the consumer culture that pervades all realms of life. And it has come to the proportion now that it even dictates our life values, self-worth and personality. The amount of material wealth and possessions one could accumulate has, by and large, turned to be the touchstone of one’s happiness or success in life, and has become the sole goal of life. It is not far to seek that it eats into all humanistic values and breeds social vices like greed, envy, jealousy and so on. It is needless to elaborate on this as we all know and experience it in our day-to-day life. The pertinent question here is - what we artists can do to curb it or at least to curtail its resultant self-erosion in the human minds?  Defacing art or letting to erode all its virtues is not an answer – it is only suicidal.

Story Painting 2

Deepa: What would be your advice to all the young artists’ out there?

Tom Vattakuzhy: My only advice is to keep the little fire in you burning. Don’t let this fire flare up and burn you by chasing what is not in you. If you feel the present art establishment does not inspire you don’t hesitate to go out of it. Keep your eyes wide open and listen deep inward to the little voices within rather than the maelstroms from elsewhere. There is no meaning to anything in this world other than the meaning you give it.

Untitled-5

Oil on Canvas

You can reach Tom Vattakuzhy at tomvattakuzhy@yahoo.com

Thanks to Tom Vattakuzhy for taking his time out and all his support to put this interview together. My attempt through these interviews are to provide insight and bring art closer to daily life and common understanding by conversing with various artists about their process, techniques, perceptions etc.

Hope you enjoyed this two-part interview. Please do leave your feedback here in the comments or you could mail me at mail.huesnshades@gmail.com

Image courtesy: Tom Vattakuzhy

Art in Gouache

June 21, 2019, 8:02 am

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It's been some time since I shared my own art. I was more occupied with the blog interviews and preparations for a group show. I am sharing a couple of art from my Moleskine. I had this gouache from Daler and Rowney and had last used it a year back so it was time to reuse it. By the way, I just love gouache. This one is watercolor and not acrylic.

I recently moved back to Dubai for my daughter's education since she wanted Humanities Arts and her preferred electives weren't available in my hometown. The transition happened quite unexpectedly but smoothly since my husband is still working there. Thank God!

Here goes my gouache works:

 Hope is what I give

At each dawn and dusk

The golden orb purifies the entirety

The only one that evades

To be purged is you. 

 Seeking the betrayer 

To avenge the wrongs

She journeyed within

Into her innermost being 

Breaking the walls

Unveiling the deepest sores

Cuts, bruises and endless scars

It was made by the most trusted-

She betrayed herself.

Immobile gaze

Wandering mind

Searching for lost terrains

Conquering hearts.♥️

Linking it to the Awesome ladies at PPF! 

Art Exhibitions, Preparation and Practice

July 19, 2019, 8:30 am

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Often I take up some personal pet projects and try to work on it, that helps me to feel that I have done some work, worthwhile. It needn't be anything fancy, just something to get into my zone. Come to think of it, I have a lot of such projects in mind. Right now I am preparing for a group show that is coming up in September and is to take place in Lalithakala Akademi Gallery in Kozhikode (famous as City of Spices once upon a time), Kerala. It's quite near to Mananchira Square where you come across the sculpture of Musui as Terra-Fly by the eminent K S Radhakrishnan. People of Kozhikode are ardent fans of art and literature; the real connoisseurs, so I have heard! Shall share the pictures of my works when the exhibition opens up. Here's a teaser for now.

Girl with a Halo - Cropped detail

Acrylics, 2x2 feet 

Back when I was in Dubai in April, my daughter and I took a trip to Dubai Public Library nearby. We both found that it was a great way to unwind and get into our zone. It was quite satisfying if it had not been for the heat! This particular sketch was made there referencing a book, Pen and Ink Book by Desarae Lee. It's a wonderful keepsake and I do have it in my wishlist. 

PITT pens on Moleskine

So this illustration was carried forward into this painting of a buck and that led to the other two and "I see you" happened with gouache. You can see my other gouache works HERE. However, they aren't going to be included in my show though. These are done on Moleskine as a means to get into my full-fledged zone, to prep me up. It helps me to focus before going into my actual work.

 I see you-1

  I see you-2

 I see you-3

Finally, I would like to share the postcards I had sent to the New Hampshire Institute of Art's International Mail Art Exhibition, "Errors, Fakes and Oddities" held from 8 Mar to 14 April 2019 at Sharon Arts Center Exhibition Gallery in Peterborough, NH. Grateful to Murali Cheeroth for sharing the 'Call-For' which otherwise I would have not known. All the works can be found Here.

These were done on Indian postcards using Winsor and Newton acrylic inks and Pigmented drawing pens. The gold ink isn't that visible here though.

As usual, linking it to the Awesome ladies at PPF!

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8 ways to Title an Artwork

August 9, 2019, 11:32 pm

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How do you title an artwork? 

These days I am in the midst of preparing for a show that is coming up next month and so I am not only engrossed in creating the works but also pondering on the apt titles for the same. I, for one, am not an advocate of “Untitled” which often point towards no-direction, lack of appreciation even culminating to not providing considerable thought to your own work (or else one needs to the blue-chip/elite artist to do so, just saying). It may sound a bit extreme but that is what I personally feel unless and until the work is so self-explanatory that it defies a title or maybe belittled/ shrunk/ compartmentalized by one.

Sometimes the titles pose themselves naturally even before I start to paint and at times I need to give it thorough thought.

So here are some ways (with some famous examples) you can come across a wonderful title:

1. The work itself suggests a title! Yes, it often does. The concept or what you are trying to paint/create often points toward a title, the obvious one.

Three Girls - 1935 - Amrita Sher-Gil

2. The names of the prominent colours used in the work.

Red Poppy No. V -1928- Georgia O' Keeffe

3. Suggestive/reminiscent of something/place etc.

Tuscany-1963-Helen Frankenthaler

4. Titles of literary works, movies or albums or even influenced by its authors.

Pére Ubu-1936- Dora Maar

Kara Walker on Toni Morrison

cover of The New Yorker-9 Aug 2019

5. Song lyrics or a line from your own poem even meander through aphorisms. I use my own Haiku as titles for many of my paintings. It makes it a bit long but then I like it!

It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue- 2018 -Bob Dylan

6. On feelings and emotions.

The Destruction of Life - 1974 - Louise Bourgeois

Misery – 1895 – Kathe Kollwitz

7. On historical events, day-to-day struggles and happenings, natural occurrences.

Salazar vomiting the homeland -1960 - Paula Rego

8. Series can have a single title, followed by a number or variations of the name. I have a series of 6 paintings called "Repercussions" but then each painting owns a Haiku of mine.

Infinity Net series - Yayoi Kusama 

Wave Returning- 2009 -Maggi Hambling

There are several personal ways in which you may go about selecting a title. This is just what I follow when I contemplate on it. Please do share your ideas in the comments.

Image courtesy: Google except for the title which is my own.

Embracing the DISTANT and the PERSONAL - a personal review

September 28, 2019, 12:09 am

≫ Next: Inking Your Way in October - The Inktober Phenomenon!

≪ Previous: 8 ways to Title an Artwork

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Distance is just a test of how far love can travel.– Unknown (and if I may add that is what makes it personal.)

When four creatives meet through art it’s a journey through the distance to the depth of each one’s soul to invoke what is personal and to grip the experience of belonging. It’s a matter of travelling both inward and outward, alike. Whether we wander in search of exotic locations and/or the mundane to capture what we perceive or whether we delve deep within and stir up an ocean of possibilities; it is at once distant and personal. Distance measures love; yes, love that which meets at every milestone and checks the parameters and squints to see where one has reached under the scorching daylight or the pelting rain tantrums and the most important question is - “Is there something for me to love here? Or maybe someone/something to love me back?” Each one undertakes a journey of one’s own and that’s not a choice. It’s a necessity, devoid of one’s control. One simply can’t choose inertia.

Besides, we are four individuals on our very personal creative journey with four varied mediums, techniques, themes and personalities that are quite distant and yet holding it to our bosom. There were 74 works in this exhibition. Our exhibition was inaugurated by the eminent Poet-Illustrator, Sri. Paul Kallanode. 

(L to R) Devidas Varma, Joby Ravindran, Paul Kallanode, Deepa Gopal, Devan Madangarly

Following in the alphabetical order, my i.e. Deepa Gopal’s protagonists enjoy detachment, solitude but they are rarely lonely. They are in a realm of their own, creating parallel worlds. My interest attempts to capture the burgeoning cosmos on one end to the deepest ocean depths on the other and everything in between and yet that which captivates me the most is perhaps the limitless mind in general and the inner workings of the feminine in particular. Myths, dreams, people and their tales, the emotions and the unbridled feelings kindle my creative juices. They are at once distant and yet personal. I like to couple some of my works with my own Haiku (Japanese poetic style) for the title. Acrylic and gouache with a hint of pen and inktense pencils were the mediums used there. The 35 works I displayed were a mix of series that I had been working on for the past couple of months. Along with the Solo girls (13 works) which were both referenced from my daughter and self, I also had my "Saga of the Nagas" (5 works) based on the myth and legends of the Sarppakkavu or the Sacred Snake Groves, Nocturne series (9 works) and landscapes (8 works) of places in and around Palakkad/Kerala.

Ring od Fireflies - Deepa Gopal 

from DISTANT and PERSONAL

Even in meditation, Devan Madangarly’s protagonists who happen to be teenage boys travel. They do not take a literal road trip though. They move to the core, the center, the essence of their being to invoke where they belong. They kindle doubts; doubts about dhyana (profound meditation) in an attempt to reveal themselves through their personal experiences. His protagonists are always solitary figures. The presence of waterbodies suggests continuum – even when it is static or flowing. Life and death is the main subject in his recent works and he uses the presence of a solitary crow in various stances that attributes to its symbolic representation. It was interesting to note a personal story about a crow that used to visit his ancestral home for a couple of years and would take biscuits only from his mother which it then went on to eat by dipping it in water, piece by piece. Watercolour (10 works), pen and ink (7 works), graphite (5 works) are some of the mediums he has used. There were 22 works of his in the exhibition.

Untitled - Devan Madangarly

from DISTANT and PERSONAL

Devidas Varma colours his wide canvas with the hues of nature seizing the epitome of beauty that nature is and his surroundings are. His journey is to apprehend and encapsulate the past glory of our Motherland while focussing on the magnificence and splendour of Palakkad to be specific. He takes on the role of a detached and distant observer who conceives and employs a personal narrative to a landscape; a setting that is inviting and open to all. The land, the green, the earth has more impact on him than anything else. It was a treat to watch his Attapadi works zooming in from a distance to a single house in three canvas. The viewers were taken back in time to an era before it had made technological advancement, before electricity. He has captured the essence of a bygone era of different factions of the society so well that it is definitely a treasure for future generations to study the lifestyle, architecture, the land and its layout etc.  All his 15 works were in acrylic.

Untitled - Devidas Varma (Attappadi landscape)

from DISTANT and PERSONAL

Joby Ravindran travels far and wide into his past and his surroundings whether that’s real and/or imaginary – into his childhood, history and dreams, etc. He is inspired by different things and themes and it’s his subject matter that determines the use of his medium which varies from watercolour and acrylic to gouache, charcoal and soft pastels. His recent works are inspired by his immediate surroundings as he is lucky enough to ogle the groovy landscape of coconuts where they mend and blend with the folks of the place like the fronds that synthesis into the braided hair of the women. There’s emotion at play when his women are often meditative and reflective, when he ventures into modes of relaxation through the odd windows peering into their ordinary lives and when he walks the quiet and distraught lanes of Bidding Street. There's a raw and rustic feel to his works which seems to emanate folklore of sorts. 12 works in charcoal and soft pastels were exhibited in the show. 

Let them relax - Joby Ravindran

from DISTANT and PERSONAL

A note about the audience:

All four of us were unanimous in our choice of Kozhikode for our exhibition. We wanted to try a new city and most importantly we wanted to experience the aesthetic hospitality that Kozhikode was so famous for. We were definitely not let down and they truly fulfilled their part of being the wonderful-kind-of-host. Each and every person who entered the Akademi had something to offer. They were not in a rush, they slowly approached each work, spent a handful of time observing, gathering, acknowledging, even rummaging at times, having conversations with us, interacting and finally leaving a mark of their own on our minds. It includes the Akademi staff as well. 
Thanks to the City! Gratitude!

Thanks to the fabulous media - print, visual and audio for supporting us and loving us the way you did. Again, Gratitude!

Poster of DISTANT and PERSONAL

Please Note:
In case anyone is interested in purchasing the works, please email at mail.huesnshades@gmail.com for the catalogue and the price.

Inking Your Way in October - The Inktober Phenomenon!

October 25, 2019, 10:55 pm

≫ Next: Curiosity Drives Me - My Creative Day with Lauren Rudolph

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Like they say “It’s that time of the year”when every illustrator in particular and every artist in general whether seasoned or the first-timer, prepares themselves to immerse in 31 days of drawings with pen and ink. Though I mention pen and ink which was how it was conceived in its beginning it has moved on to be more than just pen and ink. It has ‘stimulated’ artists’ across genres and mediums. Yes, I am speaking of Inktober as anyone too familiar with the art world routine would know. Though Inktober has its Official prompt list many artists take to their own versions including me.

According to Jake Parker, the Creator of Inktober:

“Every October, artists all over the world take on the Inktober drawing challenge by doing one ink drawing a day the entire month.

I created Inktober in 2009 as a challenge to improve my inking skills and develop positive drawing habits. It has since grown into a worldwide endeavor with thousands of artists taking on the challenge every year.

Anyone can do Inktober, just pick up a pen and start drawing.”

The Inktober website mentions the Rules and Promptsas:

1) Make a drawing in ink (you can do a pencil under-drawing if you want).

2) Post it on any social media account you want or just post it on your refrigerator. The point is to share your art with someone. :)

3) Hashtag it with #inktober and #inktober2019

4) Repeat

Note: you can do it daily, or go the half-marathon route and post every other day, or just do the 5K and post once a week. Whatever you decide, just be consistent with it. Inktober is about growing and improving and forming positive habits, so the more you’re consistent the better. That's it! Now go make something beautiful.

I can vouch for this myself since I have been taking part in Inktober, religiously, for the past 3 years and as anyone would know “Practice makes a man perfect.” It allows us to completely delve into the area(s) we would like to focus on. First year I took to Insects “Tiny, but Me!” I wanted to bring to notice the importance of tiny beings in this universe who have the right to life just like any of us. The second year I took to a much more intricate work of temple sculpturesand I spent almost 4 to 5 hours over a drawing as I was trying to ‘learn’ by making a sketch on paper, transferring it to the sketchbook and then inking it. So this year I wanted something ‘light’ and I am making Cats– our feline friends -  all within 5 to 10 minutes and it is quite gripping and exciting to observe their expressions and working through the process.

Jake Parker, Illustrator and Creator of Inktober currently living in Utah 

says that like the last two years, Jake is planning on a large piece with 31 characters, only this year he’s developing his SkyHeart characters.

He started Inktober day 1 with ‘Wake’ who is the central character in his graphic novel SkyHeart.
He goes on to say: 

“I don’t know about the prompts for this project. I mostly knew what I wanted to draw going into this, but the prompts have inspired ideas for some characters...just out of order. Like, today’s prompt is “ring” and I have a character inspired by it, but I’m saving them for the end. Wake’s prompt is day 29: injured. But I wanted to draw him first. So I guess I’m doing the prompts out of order this year.”

Loish a.k.a Lois van baarle currently a freelance illustrator and animator located in Utrecht (the Netherlands) 

“I decided to create something really personal. When I saw the prompt, 'frail', the first thing I thought of was my cat Charlie, who passed away last November. I was so attached to her, and seeing her health decline so quickly was traumatizing. I only realized in hindsight that she had been growing weaker and weaker for a long time. The reality of losing her was such a difficult thing to process that I didn't even realize it was happening until she was very sick... Until her final days. This drawing is based on one of the last pictures taken of me and her before everything escalated. I miss her every day and dealing with her loss truly has not gotten any easier.” Loish on Day 8^th prompt.

Myriam Tillson is a Freelance Sculptor and Prosthetic Makeup Artist from London

She begins her day 1 with the prompt "ring" and says:

“As you may have noticed, I failed at "taking it easy" and went straight for the high-detail, wrist-annihilating, fine-liner design... Anyway. This was fun, and so it begins!”

She adds, “I inspired myself quite a bit from the incredible @willmurai for the plants and environment in this piece. His ink pieces are out of this world, and I want to practice textures and composition this month.”

Bobby Chiu co-founder of Imaginism Studios and the founder of Schoolism, a physical/digital art school for artists and illustrators. He has a lot of inspiring words to go with his ballpoint pen illustrations:

“The only REAL failures are the good chances that are never taken.”

“You can learn when doodling. That I agree. But when you draw to learn, you learn a lot more.”

On day 8 he says: “It's not like I'm 'married' to art. Art & I are one. It's more like we're conjoined twins like Kuato from Total Recall.”

On day 10 he says: "Inspiration can come at any time, ESPECIALLY if we’re constantly looking for it. These Inktober drawings have been quite special to me. I feel like there’ve been some new understandings for me of the capabilities of a simple ballpoint pen can be used, sharpened and polished. The idea for this came to me at 4:30am. Inspiration can come at any time, so in a way, this little critter is me awake when most people were asleep."

Annie Stegg Gerard, an artist from Northern Georgia and a Bachelor in arts says:

“I'm trying out a new vellum parchment paper that was recommended by the very talented @meredithdillmanart, and I'm in love!”⁠

She has been trying whimsical illustration and her goal is to create unique images that tell a story. Annie often draws inspiration from her life and incorporates her surroundings and environment like the Halloween themes, the full moon night and the pumpkin patch she visited during the weekend into her Inktober works.

Annie and Bobby have their own prompts while Loish and Myriam are adhering to the official ones on most days and move away on certain other. 

One can see that often artists are inspired by one another’s work and they learn more by observation and incorporating influences and inspiration from others. It is a way of enriching one’s own work practice.

The artists I have mentioned here are only a couple of seasoned artists but if you take a look at Instagram with the hashtags inktober, inktober2019, inktoberworld, etc. you are bound to meet a whole array of incredible artists who definitely leave you amazed and inspire to pick up your pen or pencil or paint or maybe an iPad. There are many artists who post their process as well both as time-lapse and process videos on Instagram and YouTube.

To conclude I would like to mention what Jake points out before the beginning of Inktober that Inktober is just a framework to get yourself to draw better and have some fun with your art. It is not a contest and the challenge is to see how much one can improve one’s art in a month, to inspire and be inspired. I love it when he says that there is no “Inktober police” going around shutting down people if they are not using ink or the official prompts and asks those self-declared police to keep such thoughts to themselves and use that energy to celebrate instead. 

Jake reinforces:
"While it's suggested to use real ink, keep things black and white, and use the official prompt list, the spirit of the challenge is very open to people being creative in what tools they use, how they use them, and what they create. If at any point the challenge gets too overwhelming and you aren’t having fun, pause for a day or two. Catch your breath, and just pick up where you left off.

In short: be nice, and have fun!"

Inktober website also offers a paid course on How to Ink.

Just 5 days left for this year's Inktober to get over and my next post will be on my Cats - this year's Inktober entries. Yes, that's what I am doing this year.

This is not a promotional post. This is the third year I am participating in Inktober and some of my friends were pretty interested to know what this is about. So this is meant for all those people who wanted to know about Inktober. So next year, be prepared friends to be part of the Inktober Fest!

Inktober information from Inktober Website.
Artists' quotes and images from Instagram. 
All rights reserved by the artists.

Curiosity Drives Me - My Creative Day with Lauren Rudolph

November 4, 2019, 5:00 am

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Just a little introduction to my new mini-series where some special guests would talk about their creative experiences sharing what sums up their typical creative day. I have always found it interesting to know how each creative whether it's a fine artist, writer, singer, dancer or anyone remotely involved in any form of art spends their typical creative day. If you are one such person, then you would definitely love this mini-series. 

Without much ado, let me handover it to my first guest of honour - Lauren Rudolph.

Love and Light

Deepa

. 

Curiosity Drives Me

Last week I was on vacation in Ireland with my family and I have to say it’s a stunning country. While standing at the edge of the sea as the waves crashed and the huge clouds rolled by I thought, I created this moment.  By bringing myself there and creating the conditions to make that happen and making the choices I made, I created that moment. Every day is a creation and every moment.  I had that feeling that the canvas we paint on exists beyond just one space and that the life of an artist is all about creating the life. That being said, I do have my ways of allowing for creative days and this is where they begin…

“Every day is a creation and every moment.”

The alarm chimes and it is 5:30 am. I am a morning person and I have always loved the quiet space it allows me. I have two young children so getting up before they do, feels essential to me.  I start my morning with a mediation, which is typically around 15 minutes long. I find this a wonderful way to enter the day. I am no meditation expert, but it somehow grounds me and brings me a feeling of connection and peace.  My mediation is followed by a morning ritual of picking a card at random from an oracle deck and opening a page at random from a book I love called, “Spiritual RX” by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat. Rituals speak to me and connecting to the unseen all around us is to me a creative act as well.  I exercise three mornings a week and I have to say that for the first time in my life, I truly enjoy it. I feel strong and to me, it is a way to create a body that I feel settled in. I think in the past there was a belief that I held that I can’t be an artist fully and be fully a physical person at the same time. I let that belief go and I know that has to do with allowing myself to expand in ways and not limiting myself. After getting my children ready for school and dropping them off, it is time to create art.

“Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying”

There is another book I love called “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield. This is an incredible book that is very easy to read and it is all about overcoming resistance. He says, “ The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying”. I often don’t feel like sitting down to create honestly, especially when I’m starting something new or finishing something. I have to make the mental commitment and then just sit there and do the work having the faith that whatever is going to emerge is going to emerge. It’s like diving into the deep end of the pool off the high diving board for me. Once I take the leap and get going I feel energized and completely plugged in. My medium of choice at the moment is oil paint. I love it!! I love its possibilities and feel that each and every time I sit down to paint, I’m learning something new. Curiosity drives me. I was never a good student in school, but now every moment is a chance to learn. That is what inspires me the most.

“Curiosity drives me. I was never a good student in school, but now every moment is a chance to learn.”

While creating I love the companionship of some sort of audio. Last year I think I listened to 20 books on Audible (which I highly recommend). Mostly the books I listened to were spiritual in nature mainly connected to Buddhism and self-help/growth. I love that topic and always have. If I get tired of books I listen to podcasts usually based around the same topics. I love podcasts too! One day I may love to have my own. Lately, I have been listening to my favorite radio station that I stream from Martha’s Vineyard, Ma called MVY Radio. It’s listener-sponsored and the music so deeply inspires me! 

I am a portrait artist and my ideas often come from journaling and connecting inward. My desire is to tell stories that reflect my life experience and the stories of people who inspire me. I love to create collages choosing images at random and putting them together to create images that evolve from my intuition. As I grow as an artist I’d love to play with this further and create paintings that are full of depth, life and storytelling.  During the average day, I try to get 5 hours of painting in. If I am not painting during the week I am teaching which is my other love. I find connection through teaching and am very inspired by my students.

As the day winds down and my children come home from school I am then in the role of mother. Balancing these two lives is a creative act as well. There is a fluidity to this sort of existence and some days the two roles spill into each other like today. As I write this, my children are home in the other room and I am in this one. It’s not always ideal and boundaries have to be set but we try to work on mutual respect and the importance of space. As I said earlier, all of these things go into creating life. A creative life is multifaceted and ever-changing and I love it.

“Balancing these two lives is a creative act as well.”

Transcendence - Lauren Rudolph

About the Artist:Lauren Rudolph was born in New Jersey and currently lives in Nyack, NY where she works as a portrait artist and instructor. From a very early age, Lauren was drawn to portraiture. She has always had a fascination with the face and the essence of what it means to be human. Lauren began her college education at the School of Visual Arts in NYC and received her BA in art from the University at Albany.

Early in her creative life, pastels were her medium of choice, but she was deeply inspired by paint which she has explored through both acrylics and oils. She feels that there is a life and an energy in painting that is full of depth and that there is so much to uncover. At 42 years of age, she feels that she is now truly the student she desires to be, always open to learning, growing and allowing the artistic process to lead the way.

Inktober Cats

November 8, 2019, 12:01 am

≫ Next: FOCAL POINT - Annual Art Book Fair - Sharjah Art Foundation

≪ Previous: Curiosity Drives Me - My Creative Day with Lauren Rudolph

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Whoever had taken part in Inktober would probably still be under the veil of it's hangover if you are like me. This is My Inktober post and am sharing some works I did over the 31 days of October. In case you wish to know more about Inktober, do check this POST.

As mentioned in my earlier posts elsewhere my first Inktober of 2017 was about Insects. Second Inktober, I was a bit more ambitious and took up Temple Sculptures which really was a tough nut to crack as it needed elaborate and intricate work which consumed a lot of time but I enjoyed every bit thoroughly, observing and learning a lot. This year my time and space were limited so I had to take up something easy but wasn't sure what to delve into until the last minute like until the last week of September. I thought of subjects like birds, then animals particularly dogs, squirrels, cats, etc. then portraits (that's in my list for quite some time. I have worked on it every now and then. I find it quite an interesting subject) and then finally decided to go ahead with cats.

I decided to give myself a limited time, say 10 to 15 minutes. It was most rewarding for me since I am a slow worker and setting a time limit was fruitful. Also, it turned out to be more intuitive in a sense not allowing much thought. Sometimes I wasn't happy at all particularly in the first 2 -3 days and I sometimes started over discarding what I attempted but by the fourth day I got the hang of it. 

My Inktober Cat Series:

 Day 1

 Day 3

 Day 6

 Day 7

Day 8

 Day 12

 Day 13

 Day 14

 Day 16

 Day 21

 Day 25

 Day 28

 Day 29

Day 31

I have posted all my 31 drawings on my Instagram in different posts though. Do check out the rest there.

Linking it to the Awesome ladies at PPF.

FOCAL POINT - Annual Art Book Fair - Sharjah Art Foundation

November 18, 2019, 12:00 am

≫ Next: Inspiration Strikes The Posterwala! - "My Creative Day" with Jayaram Ramachandran

≪ Previous: Inktober Cats

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We set out to Focal Point on Friday evening eager to get our glances and grab some exciting stuff from the various curated tables set forth by Sharjah Art Foundation's annual art book fair. This year it was at Bait Obaid Al Shamsi Art Square. a 174-year old heritage site located in the heart of the city, within the Al Shuwaiheen Arts Area and opposite Sharjah port. Originally built in 1845 and renovated in the 1990s and then again in 2017, the former residence hosts artist studios, exhibition spaces, SAF exhibitions and Sharjah Biennials.

It was a pleasant evening, the winter slowly setting in except for the weekend traffic which took us one and a half hours to reach the almost specific point when our GPS unexpectedly took the liberty and took us on a bylane tour! Finally, we had to seek human intervention and got to the book fair. Since there wasn't a parking space my daughter and I flung ourselves out of the car as cars were lining up behind but thanks to the timely signal. 

When we stepped in, the sun had begun to set leaving a golden glow through the canvas roofs and the faint shadows dancing against the walls and the tables, the hip music, the colorful flags, the bustling crowd had the carnival effect on us. We instantly loved the setting, the ambience!

This second edition of Focal Point had over 150 independent publishers and artists presented across 55 booths and curated tables. Over three days from 14th to 16th, the visitors, am sure, must have discovered art books, art projects and journals, catalogues and monographs, comic stips, zines and booklets, picture books, bookmarks, pins, stickers and tote bags. The focus this year was on zines and comics. Focal Point was divided across five sections - Edit, Independent, UAE, SAF Publications and Magazines. Each one had a colour code for easy identification of its location in the brochure. SAF/Edit is the Sharjah Art Foundation's curated presentation of printed matter from across the world with a focus on the UAE and MENASA region. They had publishers like Arab Comics, Art 21, Asia Art Archive, Fantagraphics, Illusion Comics, Jabal Amman Publishers, Khoj, Minaa Zine, etc. Independent publishers included one of our favourites, Tara Books among others like Blaft Publishers, Africa Institute, Perimeter Books, Afterall, Tosh Fesh, Lendroit editions, Tok Tok Magazine, Lars Muller Publishers, Sharjah Architecture Triennial, etc. UAE publications included catalogues, zines, etc. from art institutions and galleries from across UAE like 1X1 Gallery, Art Jameel, Emirates Fine Arts Society, Green Art Gallery, Ishara Art Foundation, Louvre Abu Dhabi, Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah Museums, Tashkeel, The Third Line. etc. Magazines like Canvas, Selections and Tribe were present too.

Visitors also had the opportunity to participate in the workshops organized by SAF for kids and adults that were free but needed registration. They had workshops like zine-making, freehand drawing, bookmark making, How to draw manga and pen and ink illustrations. 

We got talking to representatives of many of the curated tables who were eager to explain it all and it was wonderful to get to know them and what they did. I did buy a couple of lovely pieces too. My daughter was particularly in love with the "Tamil Pulp Fiction" tote by Blaft Publishers. Dhwani, a graphic designer with Tara Publishers was lovely and lively talking in detail about each piece and she exuded the energy and love that she so cherished for each one of those works. I met a couple of awesome artists, one of whom I know for the last couple of years, whose comic book I ended up buying as it did have some awesome comic strips and some favourite people in it. 

We had been there on Friday and so we could hear the band, Sways N Edges, playing which really added to the ambience. Visitors on 16th would've heard Adiga; both local bands. After all the book hunting if the visitors happened to feel hungry or wanted to grab a snack the food and beverage vendors were at hand too.

It was a beautiful evening well-spent and we did return home without much hassle, heartily. It's actually wonderful to see Sharjah Art Foundation coming up with so many initiatives and projects as part of bringing in the community and the kind of awareness that they are creating not only among artists of the region but also among the masses. This needs to be emulated! Kudos to the whole team and the participants!

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. 

Please do not publish/post this article anywhere without the written permission of the author. Sharing this post with proper credits is ok.

Inspiration Strikes The Posterwala! - "My Creative Day" with Jayaram Ramachandran

November 24, 2019, 10:00 pm

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"Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will." -George Bernard Shaw

These are some of the words I live by. To me, posters are not just colours on a piece of paper or photographs of people with no meaning at all. To me, a good poster is like an invention that has meaning, emotion and essence of the subject, using just the right hues and designs. As someone very rightly said, "A picture says a thousand words."

Very often people ask me where I get my ideas from and to be honest, I have no idea when an idea will strike and in what way, shape or form. The other day I was trying to think of a design for a book on Mr. Abdul Kalam for Bloomsbury and I just couldn't get anything. Then something came up and I had to get out of the house. I was in my car, on the road and in front of me was an auto on which there was a picture of Mr. Kalam and beside the picture, it was written, "You have to dream before your dreams can come true." That triggered a million other thoughts and I got my answer. That's the weirdest thing about being creative, you never know when inspiration is going to strike you! Sometimes you think you have an idea about what you're going to do but you just need that link that can get you a clear picture, and in my case, the auto was the link I needed to de-clutter my thoughts and a get a clear picture. This reminds me of a Steve Jobs’ quote that goes, "Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things."The truth in his words is scary. But that's one of the things that gives birth to one of the most important aspects of design, curiosity.

“That's the weirdest thing about being creative, you never know when inspiration is going to strike you!”

I've been bringing my designs to life for about 18 years but one thing I've learned is that there's always something out there, something new, something bigger, something better. And that's something one shouldn't be furious about, it's something one should be curious about. Newer the material, the more relatable it is, and the stronger the connection. But even with all the material, sometimes I lack inspiration and that's when I turn to music. Music is something that helps me get into the story and gives me the feel of it. And for me, music has been a very important part of my life from the beginning, being the son of renowned Carnatic musician Palai C. K. Ramachandran. But when it comes to my art, I turn to Mr. A. R. Rahman because I believe that no one can make you feel emotions through a song like him. My fondness for him started decades ago. As a young man, most of my friends dreamed to become successful doctors, engineers and businessmen but I made it my life's purpose to go to Chennai and just get a glance of Rahman sir. When in Chennai, I used to peek into his house from outside the gate to see him even if it was only for a second and I always had this photograph of him so that I could get an autograph if possible. I tried getting into concerts as well and I tried many other ways to just get a glimpse of this man's face. Decades went by and it had been a few years since I made my mark in the industry. One day my friend from the industry called and said that we needed to meet someone but he wouldn't tell me who. We went in his car and when we were halfway there, I knew where we were going. I was on my way to fulfilling young Jayaram's dream, only this time, I didn't need to peek. Turns out "my inspiration" wanted inspiration to design the logo for his KM College of Music! I finally met my idol, took pictures as proof that I met him, not to show anybody else, but to prove to myself that all that wasn't just a dream. At our next meeting, I took the same photo I used to take to his house when I was a young man peeping from the gate and got his autograph on it. The old, faded, fragile photo, all of a sudden became all the more valuable to me. Dreams take time to come true but in the end, they do come true after all, and that's what is important. 

“Dreams take time to come true but in the end, they do come true after all, and that's what is important.”

As an artist, I'm hungry for inspiration, and inspiration exists from the smallest to the biggest of things. You'll never know when nature will inspire you. You'll never know when your friends and family or even a stranger for that matter, will inspire you. You'll never know when you will inspire yourself. If this inspiration adds to your originality, then you are unstoppable. Creativity neither has a beginning nor an end. My journey as an artist is a journey without a destination and of the thousands of images in mind, till now, this journey, with its twists and turns, has made the most unforgettable design in my mind. To more inspiration, to more surprises and to more autos giving me great ideas!

“If this inspiration adds to your originality, then you are unstoppable.”

Here's a video of  "Aliveni Enthu Cheyvu" a Mahesh Raghvan musical featuring Meera Sreenarayanan and Sreeram Ramachandran

Directed by Jayaram Ramachandran

Written by Jayaram Ramachandran and Sreeram Ramachandran

Jayaram Ramachandran who has a passion for colours saw himself getting into fine arts as a student and later into graphic designs. Movies always beckoned him and that led him to Ace Cinematographer-Director, Santosh Sivan. He never considered posters as a mere advertising tool but for him, it is a platform through which, he is able to express the movie maker’s thoughts and fantasies about their piece of art. He started his poster designing career with a few Hindi films and multilingual art films. It is through the Malayalam movie Pazhassiraja in the year 2009 that he gained immense recognition. He runs his Design shop Posterwala Design Companyin Chennai and assists Mr. Santosh Sivan in various projects.

This is the second episode of the mini-series "My Creative Day". You can check out the FIRST POST by clicking the link.

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Invented Scripts - a brief on Asemic Writing

December 1, 2019, 4:23 am

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Visual poetry as the name suggests is visually appealing, probably the first thing one would notice before the text. That makes poetry all the more exciting, I guess. There is of course double interest in the written words and the intentional form that is mostly based on the theme. It could be a recognizable pattern or a free form that could range from poems exploring handwriting, scribbling and scrawling, abstraction and illustration, mathematical equations, asemic and pansemic writing with invented scripts, xerographic pieces, material process, colour and collage, crossings out, forgotten notes, found text, interaction between paper and pen-ink, geometric poems, inarticulate poems and minimalism and the list may go on. In short, it is something like raw poems or Poem Brut. It’s more experimental in nature and your imagination can run wild creating all sorts of patterns/forms with concrete words using different typography as well. There’s a play of intermedia as well in the current times with digital formats being available and made easy. You can see earliest examples in the Metaphysical poet, George Herbert’s “Easter Wings” and the radical experiments of e e Cummings poems like “In Just” etc. The movement is said to have drawn inspiration from Dada and Surrealism. One can see examples in the works of Joan Miro’s “Le corps de ma brune” (1925) and Piet Mondrian's incorporation of Michel Seuphor's text in “Textuel” (1928).

My inclination here is more towards Asemic writing as of now. As mentioned it’s more of an invented script, an impression or shadow of the conventional writing personal to the poet but having an effect on the reader all the same. It’s a kind of pseudo or mock writing like what the children do even before they begin to write actual words. We see them do it all the time, it’s natural. Some even have pictograms and ideograms in it and the meaning isn’t rigid. It’s open to interpretation and each interpretation can be the perfect one. The most important aspect is that it is not bound to any language and the knowledge of a particular language is not essential to understanding the writing. It’s beyond all those barriers and yet able to relate to words and meaning. It bridges the void where words fail. Simply put, it is something you can’t read. There are calligraphers from circa 800 CE like Zhang Xu and Huaisu who have practiced illegible writing; it is not something that sprung up in the modern times though the variations and mediums have just widened beyond belief.

Andrew Topel’s Letters Patterns Structures

Mary Ellen Solt’s Forsythia

Abstract calligraphy, Concrete Poetry, controlled scribble, doodles, earliest writing, experimental calligraphy, ideograms, illegible writing, Inism, jazz writing, Kandinsky shamanism, Ungno Lee letter abstracts, Mail Art, André Masson automatic drawings, Henri Michaux alphabets narrations, mock letters, pseudo writing, scrittura asemantica, Austin Osman Spare sigils, Taoist magic diagrams, Cy Twombly’s works, Vinča script, Made Wianta calligraphy period, Zhang Xu wild cursive,  Luigi Serafini's Codex Seraphinianus  and several more come under asemic writing.

Man Ray, Kandinsky, Henry Michaux, Max Ernst have all experimented asemic writing at some point of their creative career.

Michael Jacobson’s blog TheNew-Post Literate is an impressive treasure-trove of Asemic writing. I read about him at Asymptotejournal. Some Asemic writers/poets include Tim Gaze, Geof Huth, Erik Belgium, Michael Jacobson and many more. I am just starting out and new to this scenario and have a lot to learn about the people and the works here. So please excuse me if there are important omissions but then do let me know so that I can include it as well.

Michael Jacobson - Page 1 from The Giant's Fence

Tim Gaze

Now that you have a general idea and a sense of what this is all about, let me show you a couple of works that I did. I can not share my favourite ones here though as I have submitted it elsewhere. These are the most recent ones from my booklet project (the second one). Glimpses from the first are on my Instagram. I took these pictures while the sun was setting and I loved the shadow it created through the glass door. What do you think?

 Aurora

Euphoria

Serendipity

These two are from my first booklet:

 Epiphany

Talisman

I did a lot of readings from different sites like Asymptote Journal, Michael Jacobson, Asemic writing, Wikipedia, Geof Huth blog, Andrew Topel blog, Richard Kostelanetz, 3am Magazine, Poetry Foundation, Litro, Brittanica, Power Poetry, Hyperallergic, Script and a couple more random articles before I wrote my piece. 

So, have you heard of Asemic writing/poems before? What do you think of it? Do let me know your views, thoughts and ideas.

The World Stirs My Imagination - My Creative Day with Katarina Rasic

December 8, 2019, 9:00 pm

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I don’t have a routine or a studio, therefore explaining my creative day is a difficult task,  expressing what inspires me is what I will aim for. The street is my studio. Scavenging for long-forgotten treasures in the busy markets stir my imagination; letting the cold water of the ocean touch my feet while I compare the sound of snow with the sound of sand under my feet.  Saying goodbye with my art to one home, so another could welcome me.

When I decided to change my life and leave my permanent home, which was the moment when everyday devoured me; MONOTONY ruptures life, I decided to resist it and started the journey of a lifetime.

“MONOTONY ruptures life...”

Still from the performance The Inside Story (Processes. Emotions. Food), Encounters, ArtO2, Mumbai, India, November 2017

Interestingly, my journey began in India, Bangalore to be more precise. I felt great creative energy and decided that I want to move. The movement will be my permanency and my driving force in creative expression.

In extension to my creative practice and as my everyday creative process is teaching, from the start, I felt it as an extension of one another. The teaching imposes questions that I often take into my art practice, it pushes me to experiment in my own work and creativity of the kids always brings new ideas into the process. My days are different from one to another and each place brings a new excitement of the discovery.

“The movement will be my permanency and my driving force in creative expression.”

Mumbaitook my heart the first time I landed in the city. I knew I never wanted to leave. Do we call it home though we weren’t born there? Every time I travelled out I was eager to come back, I missed the stuffy smell of the streets. Humid touch on my skin, noise and business, Mumbai was like a living creature with a heart pumping fast, never stopping, never getting tired. I never saw a city like that, energetic, always on the go, sweaty and busy, loud and grumpy, shiny and excited in the nights and lazy and quiet in the mornings. I always found endless inspiration on the streets of Mumbai. I collected water from the potholes of the city to create art, bathed in the sea to make a conversation with the city and collected the memories of the people living there, but it was time to leave.

“I knew I never wanted to leave. Do we call it home though we weren’t born there?”

I landed on the opposite side of the world in Rio de Janeiro, around a year ago from now. Rio shook the ground under my feet, uprooted me, and then stole my heart. It was a place that deeply changed me, I would say my entire art practice too. It made me question my work and look into my creative expression. I always say the point when creativity starts is when we are out of our comfort zone but are we ever really move out of it? How do you go out of the comfort zone, when you are the one deciding on the move? Well, I learned how in Rio. I learned how to dance on the waves of the ocean. inquired into my art, and started breaking it to build new ideas.

Moving from city to city brings a new set of questions, interests and gives us new pieces of the puzzle. Now when I am in Bangkok, again there is no routine, each day floats to another, some are there to inquire and discuss, others to create and reflect. Exploring and learning about new places and cultures impact my work greatly.

“Moving from city to city brings a new set of questions, interests and gives us new pieces of the puzzle.”

Last but not the least, I like to have a good set of markers and sketchbook with me at all times, this is very important when traveling around. But to a great extent, my work is impacted by the experiences and objects I find on the streets, which I use in performances or as a driving force to come up with ideas for my work, slowly going from more physical creation of the work to the exploration of the concepts and ideas to be transformed into performances.

 “The only constant is change.” said Heraclitus, which is a creative process in itself, I say.

About the Artist: Katarina Rasic is a Serbian artist living and working in Bangkok. She spent 5 years in India and a year in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. Rasic’s performances and paintings stem from her personal experiences and actions. Her performances draw us into the repetitive ritual-like practice, where her body becomes an introspective tool to unearth notions of home, belonging and identity deeply rooted in our collective memories.

This is the third episode of the mini-series "My Creative Day". You can check out the FIRST and SECOND one by clicking on the link.

Gandhi- Beyond Borders

December 27, 2019, 6:11 am

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My recent blog post on Artist K M Madhusudhanan’s (one of the eminent members of The Radical Movement, an avant-garde movement of the 80s) first Solo exhibition “Gandhi – Beyond Borders” happening at 1X1Gallery, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai was published in Nalini Malaviya's blog, Art Scene India. The exhibition is closing on 31 Dec 2019. It unmistakably explores the traces of melancholy, a sense of foreboding and inherent-volcanic-violence in today’s times. In case you are in Dubai and you haven't checked it out yet, do hurry.

It's been a great honour and pleasure to talk to this eminent artist about this particular exhibition and his earlier art phase as well. Thanks to Madhusudhanan Sir for his time.

You can follow this LINK to read about this exhibition.

A Day in a Life of an Artist – My Creative Day with Runa Biswas

December 29, 2019, 12:35 am

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How do I sum up a day that allows me to create art? Difficult I must say, as the ‘day’ is a sum total of thousands of days, of an unending journey of self-discovery.

My day starts with art in every form conceivable, like planning and preparing tiffin for my daughter at 5.30 AM. Tiffin and art? Then breakfast for my family and art? But, that’s how it is. I believe art is everywhere and one gets to absorb from any art form. Food is definitely one with its processes, textures and taste. It has to be healthy, tasty, interesting and inviting, all at the same time. That’s art too. Cooking is like meditation for me. It soothes me, helps me find a semblance of sanity out of chaos and madness. It’s like a jugalbandi (a duet of two solo musicians)between food and my chaotic artistic mind.

“…the ‘day’ is a sum total of thousands of days, of an unending journey of self-discovery.”

Aranyani (Forest Goddess)

Next comes exploring my home with its lovely terrace garden, that surprises me with mother nature’s art – the flowers and foliage in all their form, colour, glory and fragrance. Every day is a surprise, every day holds something new. I observe them and take inspiration for my day ahead. Do the shadow play of the leaves under the rising morning sun tries to give me a cue to composition? I think about such things as the day unfolds, and imbibe them. Perhaps, with the hope that they will sneak into my paintings. But oh wait, are the works that my brushes work fervently meant to paint or to create art? So I rummage my memories, travel back to childhood and discover my next inspiration, my next human story that I must bring forth on my canvas. And more importantly bring them to life, which touches souls and moves people.

I put on the music, my old radio or the music system. It depends, on what I am going to create that day. From Tagore songs to Bob Dylan, I shuffle through and then listen to them with my heart. Sometimes, I pause them to listen to a Bulbul just outside my window and join it humming my favourite songs.

”Do the shadow play of the leaves under the rising morning sun tries to give me a cue to composition?”

The morning newspapers confront me with reality, and also human stories of triumph and tribulations. A hot cup of Darjeeling tea balances my senses, soothes my nerves and strengthens my resolve to do my bit. As I sip the second flush muscatel, it takes me back to the sylvan hills and the mysterious customs of the Buddhist monks, of the simple life of the pahari (people inhabiting the Himalayan regions of Nepal and northern India) people. I shuffle my music list and listen to ‘Pahari’ by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and Shiv Kumar Sharma and suddenly the hills invade my home. I am not a very religious person, but I do pray mostly to thank and rarely to ask.

Moving to the next, at around 9.30 AM, after all my family members have been taken care of, is when a mother, wife and daughter-in-law is ready for the artist. My studio beckons, the paints gear up, the brushes quiver and my canvases on easels become restless to meet me.

“My studio beckons, the paints gear up, the brushes quiver and my canvases on easels become restless to meet me.”

At 10 AM sharp I am at my studio. It begins with mundane things like checking messages and mails and responding to them. But, at times, exciting official work like responding to a studio or an enquiry. I also scan through a few art websites to get the day’s news.

The next half an hour I dedicate myself to read. Over the last couple of years, I have tried to build a small library of sorts. From theatre to tribal art to textiles, and of course study material on masters – both past and present, and both international and national. Ganesh Pyne is one of my favourites and so is Jogen Choudhury for his bold lines. I also like to read about Chittoprasad for his fieriness, as also Bhaijju Shyam for his dare to dream attitude. Hockney, Sabavala, Nolde, Manida…all of them suddenly fill my studio and sweep away the quietude. Each one inspires me, tells me to pick up the brush and lets go off the apprehensions about acceptance/rejection that clouds my thinking.

I then take a deep breath and look at my canvases, brushes and paints - My time to talk to them and listen to them. Have I failed them? Poured enough love for them? After all, they are all my children. At times they do tell me a lot of things, their worries or even sentiments. But in the end, our conversations end on one note – pick up the brushes and tell your untold story, paint for the greater glory of life.

“Each one inspires me, tells me to pick up the brush and let go off the apprehensions about acceptance/rejection that clouds my thinking.”

And so, I pick up a conte or a charcoal block to draw the first lines. Slowly the rhythm picks up and the line between reality and imagination starts getting blurred. The brushes follow, then the scalpel or maybe the syringes and tubes of color. In between, sandpapers come and go and so are the colour pencils and ink. It’s the most satisfying period, as I lose count of time and what is happening around; detached with the world yet attached to my own that I have created. After a spell, I step back and then I am my biggest critic. It depends at what stage the painting is, and whether it satisfies me as it evolves. The next is to go back to it with double the effort, maybe start fresh or course-correct if the painting needs so.

Till I am reminded by a gentle buzz on my phone that it’s Lunchtime, and that 3 hours have just flown. I come back to receive my daughter from school and listen to her day’s story until I serve lunch to my family. The afternoon is spent reading a book, maybe a fast-paced thriller on India’s archaeological findings or behind the scene anecdotes of Sherlock Holmes or even short stories by Tagore. At times I find similarities with the struggles and frustrations of the Master Painters, and at times the laidback afternoon brightens up on finding similarities of triumph and hope with that of my own journey. This is my recharge time for the evening shift.

“It’s the most satisfying period, as I lose count of time and what is happening around; detached with the world yet attached to my own that I have created.”

Evenings are spent helping my daughter with her studies, solving Maths, explaining physics and giving her tasks while I head for my studio again. Enroute I pick up groceries and vegetables. And then, I am back at my studio for the next 2 hours, picking up from where I left in the morning session. I draw the curtains and look at the city’s night skyline, the reflection of dancing lights on the lake and soak in the breeze. I head back home again for one of the most interesting parts of the day – my chit chat session with my husband, friend, guide and philosopher. Till dinner time, when the whole family comes together over the table. This is the time our discussions veer from unusual to the most mundane of topics from films to music to cybernetics to biotechnology to philosophy to cuisine, except politics that is.

At 10.30 PM it’s time to listen to the Night Jar and the whispering trees, and then the dreams take over; preparing me for another day, for an unending journey to find myself, my true calling.

About the Artist: Born in 1975 Runa Biswas comes from the old side of Kolkata, India and lived in a house that was 100 years old, surrounded by a history of 300 years. There was art everywhere, surrounding her with its many hues, patterns, colours and smell. From a very early age, she was drawn to art; painting whatever evoked a sense of happiness and freedom. After procuring a Diploma in Fine Arts from Rabindra Bharati University and an MSc in Economics from Calcutta University, she dived straight into the world of colours, mainly watercolours, then on to more experimental forays with ink.

Currently, Runa Biswas is based out of Bangalore. Over 15 years or so she had been able to develop a highly unique artistic language, experimenting with various mediums, textures, tools, and concepts. She uses a mix of wash technique, layer on layer glazing, pouring, batik and brushwork. This allows her to combine the rigidity of bold lines with the fluidity of watercolor. Her subjects are mostly figurative, inspired by dreams, folklore, mythology, and personal moments that were etched in her memory. Her tools are as varied as her subjects - brushes, pens, palette knives, droppers, twigs, combs, and even her nails. With speed and timing being key, she has trained herself to be ambidextrous, using both her hands at the same time to implement different applications.

This is the final episode of the mini-series "My Creative Day" this Season. You can check out the FIRST, SECOND and the THIRD one by clicking on the links.

Tamashee - Redefining the Traditional into Contemporary

January 31, 2020, 11:52 am

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Tamashee is one of the region's high-end footwear brand based in Dubai. It has been envisioned and designed by Mohammed and Muneera, the two lovely, ebullient souls whose smiles are infectious. They can spread warmth by their presence and their eloquence. So what happens when they design something seeking inspiration from their past, raking up the forgotten, experiencing the traditional, inhabiting the cultural, researching at all levels and then producing a dream-like brand unique to the region that supplements and complements at the same time to the sensibilities of not only the region but also internationally as well.

Muneera and Mohammed - Founders of Tamashee

The Founders

Tamashee active co-founders are Muneera Al Tamimi originally from Saudi Arabia and Mohammed Kazim who is an Emirati. Muneera and Mohammed are very passionate about the rich culture of the Arabian Peninsula. They created the brand Tamashee in order to highlight the beauty of the region by shedding light through every collection on a specific element.

Tamashee

The word is a combination of two Arabic words - Mashee(to walk) and Yatamasha (compatible). This directly portrays Tamashee’s work in footwear whilst proving an aspect of compatibility in each of its values: the past with the present and the regional with the world.

Preserving Identity

Tamashee products have been inspired by the research of cultural designs and patterns. Tamashee carefully studies the history, form, and function of each cultural design and revives certain key elements of the past through its products.

Representing Culture

Tamashee seeks to redefine the traditional elements into contemporary designs and to make them appealing to both traditional-regional and modern-international tastes. They have evolved the construction of traditional footwear by pioneering modern-day methods and applying them to traditional techniques.

Coloring Lives

Creating an impact in society is the most important of Tamashee’s causes.

Tamashee achieves this by:

-   -- Spreading information about unique elements of the Arabian Gulf’s rich history (and the broader peninsula)

-   -- Providing a platform and a network for emerging artists from the Arabian Gulf to display and spread awareness of their talent.

Tamashee gives a lot of thought to every model it produces. The research that goes into every collection revolves around the materials used, crafts of the region, and the interesting story it conveys. 

Through its work, Tamashee thrives to create a soulful narrative from within the region that contributes to advancing the Arabian Gulf identity. Some examples of this can be seen in our products through the re-introduction of the turquoise color, the preservation and development of the rings used in the region’s footwear, and the use of the Hijri (Islamic calendar) calendar. 

In the current collection, Tamashee has adopted and adapted Musnad script, an ancient South Arabian script, and deconstructed it into unique symbols and patterns and imprinted it on their products be it footwear or bag/wallet giving it a distinctive existence.

Tamashee’s Production

A large part of Tamashee’s intricate and unique construction relies on handmade production which contributes to the uniqueness of each pair. Tamashee products are handmade in Spain, UAE, and India by experienced craftsmen using high quality natural/naturally dyed leathers and materials in facilities with expertise that cater to global luxury brands.

Tamashee Experience

As part of completing the cultural experience, Tamashee offers guided tours to cultural locations in the Arabian Peninsula with emphasis on elements Tamashee has researched and documented. Tamashee’s founders are licensed tour guides in the Emirate of Dubai and are well connected to licensed tour guides all around the Arabian Peninsula.

Tamashee Experience trips include:

Taif Rose Festival, KSA

Asir Highlight, KSA

Northern Emirates, UAE

Al Jawf, KSA

Shuhooh, Rous Aljibal, UAE/Oman

And many more.

Image courtesy: Tamashee website

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. This was included primarily for the interet and pride that the Founders take in the traditional arts of the region, conducting research and infusing it into their products with a unique contemporary feel and spreading the rich cultural heritage across. Promoting such art and artists is primarily the emphasis of Hues n Shades.