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Photo: M. Karunakaran

INTO YOUR SELF Manisha Raju with her painting on the sun

Navagrahas, represented as people, are in meditative poses, with eyes closed. “If the eyes are kept open, then the viewer becomes interested in the person on the canvas,” says the artist. “But I want the person to look into themselves.” Even in her previous works, where she depicted women doing their daily chores, the women had their eyes closed. “We need a moment to contemplate, even in the midst of a busy day,” she says.

It is an ambience that Manisha has tried to create. Her canvases are large to draw the viewer into the experience. She has drawn kolams associated with each of the grahas, and plays new-age chanting of the Navagraha stotrams in the background, at the gallery. She has used less intrusive colours and minimal elements distinct only by tonal variations. “I want the viewer to be at peace,” she says. Her subjects have an androgynous appearance because she wants the viewer to go beyond the physicality of the subject. Using the symbols associated with the planets and slokas from the Vedas, she layers the visual with the religious associations. Each subject also holds a lotus in hand to refer to the “evolution of life.”

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