Four decades in retrospect
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By experimenting with bold colours and styles Swamy has consciously avoided being typecast with his stereotyped contemporaries.
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CREATIVE CONTRIBUTION Swamy's paintings capture the rustic life in totality.
Sixty-year-old V.V. Swamy has a penchant for picking up empty eggshells found strewn on the roadside. So far, he had picked up 1,500-odd eggshells, taken them home and carved out portraits of prominent public personalities and mythological figures with a small scalpel. Swamy's proclivity for such empty shells may sound weird to many, but that is one of the several ways he likes to convey his creative feelings.
During a chequered career spanning over 40 years Swamy had won several National and State awards for both paintings and poetry, besides participating in over 17 one-man painting exhibitions across the country.
A retrospective of Swamy's 60 selected paintings done in oil, water and acrylic medium on paper and canvas during the last 40 years are on display as part of an exhibition organised by the Department of Culture at the Kala Bhavan, Ravindra Bharati. The exhibition of the 60 select paintings is a symbolic tribute to Swamy's completion of 60 years.
The paintings reflect the diverse expressions and feelings of the artist brought up in a rural atmosphere but settled in the city. The gifted artist captures brilliantly rural settings, men and women in traditional costumes, the typical village ambience, the bull fight, cock fights, dusty roads, rugged houses and the innocent peasants' lifestyles.
Using bold colours, textures and palette, he gives an authentic touch to his inspirations. His long association with the historic city has also inspired him to create a series of paintings about the Hyderabadi culture and its socio-economic life.
Obsession with Ganesha
But a striking feature of the exhibition is Swamy's obsession with Lord Ganesha who is depicted in myriad forms. As per the scriptures, Ganesha has 52 forms, identical with the number of letters in the Sanskrit alphabet. Swamy has treated Ganesha's images with abstract, semi-abstract and figurative forms using vibrant colours with minimal lines.
Swamy vividly captures the "Bull fight" - a popular sport in Tamil Nadu, the ferocious movements of the bulls, the energetic bullfighter and the ultimate triumph of the fighter over the animals. Another interesting work is the "Road" which reflects a set of paintings done on canvas with acrylics, illustrating the aerial view of a village with curved roads to draw a metaphorical interpretation that all roads finally unite at one particular point.
Swamy feels that most artists do not succeed, as they remain confined to the traditional styles.
"An artist should not confine himself to any particular style. Instead the focus should be on evolving a variety of styles and colours to match each individual work," says Swamy.
The exhibition is open to public till July 9 from 11 a.m to 7 p.m.
R. BALAJI
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Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
