IMAGES FROM LIFE: A painting by Gurusiddappa

BANGALORE: A long way from his village near Chitradurga, Gurusiddappa is quite content and happy among the display of his works at the Karnataka Chitrakala Parishat in Bangalore. The surreal and figurative nature of his paintings can be traced back to his training here and at Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda.

Focused approach

"I am much focused on image making,'' he says about his work. As Suresh Jayaram, who heads the Fine Arts College at Chitrakala Parishat observes, Gurusiddappa's previous show here was on himself and his intimate world. He focused on his own body and his life as a young man experiencing life. Those were testing times to survive and sustain himself as a visual artist and balance his life as a family man planning to have a child. He and his wife, Latha, who is also an artist, taught at the local school to survive. As his friend, artist Lina Vincent comments, his present range of paintings use the visual language of the beautiful, the symmetric and the dreamlike, all used in different proportions.

Like the man whose umbilical chord becomes a bird's nest; the male bird has to keep rebuilding the nest till the female feels it is good enough to lay eggs in. This picture captures Gurusiddappa's thoughts of his imminent fatherhood. He also says: "Every time I complete a painting, I start looking for new images and a fleeting image often prompts him to paint. Some are from real experiences, such as a child who asked whether a camel uses its hump to store water, as myths tell us. "I spend three days a week in my work and another three weeks working with underprivileged children whom I teach art,'' he says.

Some are from slums and some from the streets. In many of them he has been able to find a creative spark, which can become an ember and then a flame, with enough encouragement. They may not all become artists and will at least be able to appreciate art better than their peers when they grow up, he believes.

There are luminous backgrounds and flashes of light and shadow in his paintings. The night sky often predominates.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail