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Green gallery

From wild streams and green forests to azure skies, Rajaa's works capture Nature forever

STORY IN SHADES KMS Rajaa Photos M. Periasamy

The brooding forests of Assam, a pleasant Canadian landscape with its quiet rivers and the Second Avenue at Besant Nagar lined by clipped green bushes — the paintings of KMS Rajaa are all about Nature.

Village view

"I am from a village called Mettukudi in Virudhunagar; natural beauty has always influenced me," says Rajaa. A scenic waterfall seen long ago, but still lingering in your mind; photographs in newspapers and magazines of forests tucked away afar; and idyllic natural beauty have all been translated into colours by the artist.

A walk around the exhibition hall at the Kasthuri Sreenivasan Trust Culture Centre, where the 38 paintings of Rajaa are displayed, is like a trek into the forests. His canvas is replete with broken bridges, stones smoothened by the running stream, and the azure sky — Nature at her pristine best.

The message is to keep this perfect beauty intact, says Rajaa. "My paintings are not about Nature that is rough and tough. But of Nature that is calm," he says. So, though there are no raging storms and wrecks, each painting and each forest has a distinct quality. While the forests of Assam stand out for the dense green used to lend them life, the parks in Shimla are bathed in crimson hue; the yellowing leaves herald autumn.

Forest frames

Though it is all about the forests and sometimes the sea, no two frames look the same. "I have used four shades of green to depict one forest. In certain frames, colours have been mixed to give 12 hues of green," says Rajaa.

These shades have worked magic for the paintings. Though the works are not about the fury of Nature, the distinct colouring ensures that some forests speak of lurking danger while serenity is writ large in others. If it is spring in one, autumn has left the trees bare and leaves yellow in others, if one is about the sunrise, another is about the sunset.

Rajaa's paintings also unconsciously bring out the contrast between rural and urban life. If the portraits of faraway lands stand out for the abundance of green, a newspaper photograph of the Chepauk stadium, recreated by the artist, has a brown, leafless tree sapped of life by smoke and fume.

Realistic portrayal

From the beaches of Kozhikode, the tea gardens of Mancholai and the waterfalls of Coutrallam to the forests of Sikkim, Rajaa has successfully managed to create the magic of nature with his realistic portrayal.

The exhibition is on till March 27 between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. and all the works are for sale.

ANIMA BALAKRISHNAN

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