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Hues of rain K.A.Soman and one of his paintings

The ‘Summer Rain’ collection, recently done comprise nine works, all done in uniform colours, light green, dark green, black and white. The media is mixed. There is oil and then? Soman says he won’t tell! “They are commissioned paint,” he adds, with a mysterious laugh. What are the price tags like? Soman won’t tell that either! “On May 1, I will list the prices,” he discloses. But when you don’t know what paint it is how will you know whether they will last? That is an answer prospective buyers will have to find out from the artist himself.

Anyway the abstracts and semi abstracts, some from his early stints as a painter, hang under three heads: Summer Rains, Nostalgia and Unscripted Dreams. Soman, who is a deputy Commissioner, Commercial Taxes, in Mattancherry, says painting is relaxing in his busy official schedule. “It brings some sort of balance ,” he explains.

During his college days, his paintings used to fetch him pocket money. He has won a few laurels too, including one from the Lalithakala Akademi. Though he has taken part in a couple of group shows, this is his first solo show.

The nostalgia section sees Soman experimenting with his style, going from realism to abstract and trying out colours with some restraint, playing with forms, like giving a human facial façade to a cliff and trying out bold thick shades. The latest group of paintings are easy on the eye, especially the soft colours and forms that you have to discover in them.

Village scenes, female figures, lonely forms, buildings and roads can be gauged from the splash of colours that inhabit the frames. “They are my own feelings reflected and what I saw in my childhood in my village. Those experiences are reflected in these,” says Soman who is very interested in other forms of arts too.

He was the convenor in the just concluded Maharaja’s College Sangamam. He was part of the old orchestra and for old times’ sake, he sang, Paarijaatham Thirumizhi thurannu… at this meet.

Soman makes it a point to be at his show for some time every day despite his busy schedule.

The show is on till May 4.

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