Tamil Nadu - Chennai   

Where pure colours do the talking

Staff Reporter

Cartoonist Keshav's paintings go on display in the city

THE MAN AND THE ART: Keshav at the painting exhibition being held at Ashvita Art Objects & Artifacts in Chennai. — Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

CHENNAI: It is a space filled with pure colours, lissom forms and lots of action. If the colours go to make a rich tapestry of motifs, he space between the bright hues comes across like the melody carried by the breeze, taking you by surprise.

V.P. Keshav, The Hindu 's cartoonist, has created motion with his judicious and deliberate strokes of colour and music out of the spaces left bare.

"A painting will be bland if there are no elements of music or dance. Indian art is multi-layered," says Mr. Keshav.

His oils, acrylics and watercolours on the myth and metaphor of Lord Krishna are on display for the first time at Ashvita, off Dr. Radhakrishnan Salai.

The `Kaliyamardhanam' series, the sequence where Lord Krishna subdues serpent Kaliya's hundreds of hoods with his sure steps, is delivered in stylised oils as well as almost-minimalist watercolours.

The accent is on form and colours in the oils to bring out the drama and essence of Krishna's dance to quell egos from resurfacing. The watercolour in the same series has only barely-there strokes to define the form yet deliver the message with a punch.

The artist seems to revel in the white spaces, in the unpainted flute held by the lithe body of the Lord bent backwards (in the painting titled `Katri Ni Le Varum Geetham') to recreate the ethos of Indian art and philosophy through his `Krishna Leela' exhibition.

N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu , who inaugurated the exhibition on Sunday, called the paintings "a stunning surprise" from a "quiet and modest person" who has been the newspaper's political cartoonist from the late 80s.

(The exhibition is on at No.11, Ashvita Art Objects & Artifacts, 2nd Street, Dr. Radhakrishnan Salai, Mylapore, till February 16 between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m.)

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