Colours of angst
SHILPA NAIR ANAND
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Six former students of RLV Fine Arts College, Thripunithura, put up a group exhibition.
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Photo: H. Vibhu
UNITED IN EXPRESSIONS: (From left to right) Sudheesh Kottembram, Saju Padmanabhan, A. K. Salim, Abhilash Unni, Hochimin P. H, Sanam C. N.
It is the art season and art galleries are abuzz with activity, or rather exhibitions. A group of six artists - Hochimin P. H, Abhilash Unni, A. K. Salim, Saju Padmanabhan, Sanam C. N and Sudheesh Kottembram - alumni of RLV Fine Arts College, Thripunithura, got together for a group exhibition.
The exhibition was an amalgamation of varied styles, mediums, sensibilities and preoccupations. Their preoccupation with the rapid rate of urbanisation, globalisation and the resultant depletion of the environment... all found expression in the exhibition.
"Our political beliefs brought us together. We could not help wondering where art is headed to. Most art these days seems to be devoid of a political language, the semantics of images and ideology. Combined with this is a concern for the quality of modern life," says Hochimin.
Although the concerns are common, each artist's highly stylised and individualistic paintings convey these eloquently.
On the one hand there is Salim's paintings of underwater life, of vegetation and animal life, on the other there are Sanam's charcoal etchings of his perception of indiscriminate urbanisation. Hochimin and Sanam did their post graduation in sculpture and their structured paintings show influences of sculpting which makes their works offbeat.
A couple of paintings by Saju Padmanabhan focus on life on the seaside. One striking painting has a coconut palm on the beach front, with an umbrella made of palm fronds and a couple of chairs. But for the dark angry looking sea, the painting could have been called happy. The message seems ominous, as with Abhilash Unni's paintings as well.
Abhilash's paintings have beautiful facades and verandas of houses in the foreground. The background is bleak. Sudheesh Kottembram's paintings have a surrealistic feel. "More than conveying what is conventionally understood to be political, there is the politics of images that each artist chooses. There is an ideology in that, and that I have tried to incorporate into my paintings," says Sudheesh.
Lack of human forms
Interestingly, very few of the paintings have human forms, as Hochimin sums it up, "Modern life is mechanical. There is no creativity at all. Cities are concrete jungles, life in cities are the same and human beings living in them are also becoming `concrete,' lifeless."
Hochimin's paintings seem to replicate his views, solid cubes devoid of windows, vegetation and life, the images convey very eloquently the dilemma of modern life and art, without attendant complexities of imagery.
The same goes for the entire exhibition.
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