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 |

Visual treat Works by Chandranath Acharya, Vijay Kumar and Alphonso Doss

Headlining the show, so to speak, is Alphonso Doss with two of his characteristic figurative abstracts — of a village woman with a brilliantly coloured parrot and another praying — with bold strokes and energetic patches of bright yellows, reds and greens against the white space of his canvas.

In contrast to the vibrancy of his paintings is the stillness of Ramesh Rao’s. The Udipi artist’s works each depict rocks and pebbles against the backdrop of still blue waters or the dusty ground, and nothing seems to stir, not even a breeze, on his clear, spare renderings of Nature. And then there are the smooth, flowing lines and strokes on Maniam Selven’s works, each depicting Lord Siva, and each in moody, mystical shades of blue with highlights of yellow.

From the mystical to the material — the most striking aspect of Rama Suresh’s works is their realism. Each painting shows a person (a man and a woman) entering a temple, and the use of perspective, lighting and texture is so remarkable that you feel you could reach into the painting and touch the stone step or the fold of the woman’s sari.

Chandranath Acharya of Bangalore too creates a terrific light and shade effect, using small flecks and dabs of light and dark paint to make his surrealistic abstracts seem to glow from within. The Guntur artist Vijay Kumar’s works, on the other hand, are peaceful and dreamy, landscapes that are awash with yellow-greens and green-blues, speaking to one of open spaces and the vastness of valleys.

G. Raman’s stylised figurative paintings — a gypsy woman with her baby, for example — stand out for their delicate detailing — fine lines and geometric patterns in white or black run all over the bright reds, oranges, greens or blues splashed on the canvas. In contrast, Manohar’s paintings of simple rural scenes are spare and executed entirely on a muted green-brown background with simple black figures. The extensive use of texturing lends them a distinctive look.

Shailesh explores the human anatomy in his spare paintings, while A. C. Rajasekar experiments with the form of a vase of flowers. Dhinakara Sundar toys with soft tones and overlapping pastel colours that fill his canvas… Indeed, the only thing the paintings in this collection have in common is their love of colour and the camp where they all came into being. Yet, as a whole, they are a visual treat. The exhibition is on until March 8.

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