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Myriad shades
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Pushpa Dravid’s latest collection of paintings Prakruti-Akruti is on show at the Welcom Art Gallery
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COLOUR CODED Largely coloured by greens and yellows, the collection is inspired by rural life
Prakruti-Akruti’ (Nature-Form) is the theme for Pushpa Dravid’s latest collection of paintings. Largely coloured by greens and yellows, the collection is inspired by rural life, particularly women and nature, and sometimes you almost feel like they have been personified as one. “Bamboo Grove” seems to set the pace of the rest of the paintings in the way the artist has used similar brushes and strokes in the pointed bamboo leaves, the sharp blades of grass, women’s combed hair or their grass-like skirts.
If “Bamboo Grove” is wispy and yellow like the sun-burnt wild vegetation in grasslands, then “Folk Musicians” shows village women settling to an evening of music and leisure set against a deep purple background, strumming and beating at their instruments. “Women at work” is one of the paintings set apart from the rest — rich hues of purples and blues drape both the women and eventide light.
What’s different about this piece is that even the women are dressed in dark shades, unlike the rest of the collection where they are usually clad in brighter saris.
Two other interesting paintings are “Listening (Shruti)” and the one of “a woman enjoying her youth and life”. Both these pieces use a combination of scarlet red, mustard green, wood brown and sober yellow which attempts capture all the liveliness and sensuality of both the feminine form and friendship. The trademark of her paintings seems to be the highlighted forehead and nose area; almost as if they were of the priestly class. But the artist says: “The technique of colouring the forehead and nose a lighter shade is to indicate the areas where light usually falls – the three-dimensional face. I picked it up when I was studying in school in Gwalior.”
If it’s the light-coloured forehead, then it’s also the buxom and low-waist sari-clad women that seem to figure in every painting. But the paintings seem repetitive in not only way of the strokes and brushes used but also the positions and faces that the women seem to take and wear. Most of the facial expressions look contorted and twisted, rarely depicting an emotion other than sadness and dejection. But this is turned to happiness in “Listening (Shruti)”. The ghostly “Lost in Thought” looks eerie and the form of the woman and child in “Warmth” shows lack of experimention with facial expressions and body constructions. “I have used colours which indicate happiness and a light atmosphere. The bright colours of the paintings play a big role in the pleasing effect it will have.”
‘Prakruthi-Akruti’ will be on display till November 4 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Welcom Art Gallery, ITC Windsor, 25 Golf Course Road. Call 98864-11173.
AYESHA MATTHAN
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Mangalore
Puducherry
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
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