BENGALURU:In ‘People - Complete, Incomplete’, artist Ponnu Elizabeth Mathew uses human figures and faces to explore the ‘completeness’ and ‘incompleteness’ people experience.“Occasionally people feel happy, contented and feel entirely complete,” says the young artist, whose works will be displayed at Dr. Beltran’s Gallery from tomorrow. “The next moment on, they could feel incomplete... emotions shift rapidly.”“One might feel weary and incomplete sometimes, but there is one thing that people can fall back on... hope,” she says. “This can come to us in the strangest of ways and this can complete us.” Ponnu says this captures the idea of the show.
In this series, she also deals with intimacy men and women experience in relationships. “I am trying to understand the emotions that run relationships,” she says.Ponnu used to be a journalist before, but she gave that career up when it became deskbound.In school, her talent in painting went unnoticed. “I loved painting but I thought I was bad at it,” she says. “But now I realise that in school they only wanted skies painted blue and birds had to be black.” The classes didn’t keep her interest because she thought that was all there was to it.
She is a self-taught artist now and does not follow or refer to any other artist’s works for inspiration. “I admire people (who are her subjects), their thoughts fascinate me,” says the artist who started painting when she turned 18. Ponnu still feels “lost” sometimes in a world of art that calls “huge”, and she often does not know where to start.
Ponnu’s preferred medium is acrylics, but she also works with oil, ink, charcoal and poster colors. “I like acrylics because I can make changes and the paints dry faster.”Her next project will be wire and plaster sculptures and, at this show, she will be presenting an installation done in paper mache.
Ponnu’s first work titled “Mango People” for “aam aadmi” was on strong women and achieving their dreams. “It was on how oordinary women can be extra-ordinary in their own way,” she says. Her paintings will be on display from today to June 27, from 9 am to 5 pm. The exhibition will open to the public from tomorrow.