Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

RIOT OF COLOUR The use of metaphors remains strong in his visual language

In prison the aspirant spent his time drawing and painting. This was brought to the notice of the then Principal of the Madras School of Arts and Crafts, D.P. Roy Chowdhary, who persuaded him to join the art institution after his release. But his destiny was written elsewhere and he enrolled at Kala Bhavan, Shantiniketan, an art institution founded by Rabindranath Tagore.

K.G. Subramanyan was born in 1924 into a Tamil family in Kuthuparamba, Kerala. Had he joined the art institution in Madras, the destiny of the artist and the Madras School of Arts and Crafts would have been different.

Chennai is now a witness to this celebrated art patriarch’s solo show happening at Gallery Sumukha. Perhaps this is the first public viewing of this seminal artist in the city. The artist has blossomed not only as a sculptor and a printmaker but as an inspiring pedagogue, theorist and visionary, whose contribution in the development of modernity in India remains unchallenged.

His incisive intelligence has led him to author books, related to his perceptions on art. His take on life in general, is at a pragmatic level, inspiring him with concerns on daily activities, ordinary people, domestic animals and everyday things.

This approach is integral to his persona and was reinforced at Kala Bhavan, (1944-48). It was the presence of artists such as Nandalal Bose, Binode Behari Mukherjee and Ramkinkar Baij, that made him aware of the three basic concepts on which he based his art; nature, tradition and individuality. Subramanyan consequently was able to achieve a successful synthesis of the culture and working of folk tradition with modernism.

His works therefore reflect a decorative handling of space, privileging design, insistent mediation with vernacular flora and fauna enabling him to define a posture of difference and individualism that resonates with the timbre of the Indian spirit.

His stint as a teacher at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda, (1966-1980) enabled him to interface with craftsmen working with different materials and technique.

Subramanyan’s virtuosity in blending skill with perception underpinned his approach to art making. It comes as no surprise when he moves with easy facility from one medium to another creating buon fresco (wet painting on plaster), terracotta murals, wooden menagerie of toys, cement sculptures, weaving, glass painting, printmaking, water colours and gouache as well oils and acrylics. In his paintings he charts a trajectory for implied narratives that are in varying degrees, witty, erotic, sly and darkly humorous.

The use of metaphor remains strong in his visual language particularly in the present collection conflating the buffalo to the evil demon which Mahishasuramardhini overpowers and vanquishes. There is an ominous aura of death pervading his works mediated through angels and the buffalo. The fluency of the melting brushstroke creates calligraphic lines that gestalt into vibrant expressions. The colours are again a riot with kitschy pinks and oranges, ink and icy blues, pastel and pastoral greens, dense blacks, blood reds, shining yellows etc.

Says Subramanyan, “There are endless images in each thing, depending on how we see it or “make” its equivalent. In fact we see a thing for sure only when we make its equivalent.” Little wonder that variety remains the spice of his breathtaking oeuvre.

The show is on at Gallery Sumukha until February 5.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail