CHENNAI: Classical tunes of Frank Sinatra’s The way you look tonight play from the speakers, as we enter the softly-lit gallery at Lalit Kala Akademi. We’re greeted by Salvador Dali, looking straight at us, a mischievous expression exemplified by his iconic ‘ten past ten’ shaped moustache.
“Dali was a highly notorious artist, whose signature was his self-portraits. I saw a life-size portrait of the same in his Dalí Theatre and Museum in Catalonia, Spain, about seven years ago. It’s a very beautiful museum, but you can’t understand half the things there — his brain works like that,” laughs Sithara Sarangan, the hand behind the portrait. She introduces herself, taking us on a tour of her exhibition.
A lawyer by day and artist by night, Sithara’s first ever exhibition in the city is titled Aikamata, which translates to ‘time travel’ in Finnish. Portraying several personalities from the past, the self-taught artist has used pencil, charcoal, and felt-tip pen strokes to bring these personalities to life. “I wanted to highlight personalities who are popular, but didn’t get enough recognition in their lifetime,” she states.
For example, the portrait of Audrey Hepburn, she explains, was to highlight the humanitarian side of the popular British actress. “She started her NGO and working with African kids, and was also a UN ambassador and won the Presidential Medal of Freedom during her lifetime,” Sithara explains.
Likewise, there are pop-art portraits of personalities from different cultures, who’ve been bold, eccentric and often controversial such as Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, MS Subbulakshmi, Sophia Lauren etc. Sithara says she wanted to ‘put a face and story to the name’. “I have the habit of randomly reading up history. When I read about a gripping character, I think of drawing them,” she explains.
A particularly arresting portrait is that of the late actress Elizabeth Taylor, her eyes stopping the viewer in their tracks. “This seems to be a favourite in this collection. An art professor from the Government Arts College visited yesterday and observed the same thing!” she laughs, admitting that conveying emotions in black and white portraits is a challenge.
Crossing Bob Marley’s portrait on brown paper, we come to a coloured portrait of 20th century Mexican painter, Frida Kahlo — a sudden shift from greys and blacks to vivid colours. Why the shift? “I never liked following the rules or set standards. I like the fact that you can do whatever you want and however you want to, in the world of art,” she shrugs.
The last portrait is a pencil sketch of a wrinkled old man, his eyes as piercing as they are sad. The accompanying text reveals the man’s identity as a victim of the 2015 Nepal earthquakes. “The wrinkles took a long time to sketch. A bigger challenge was to emphasise the pain in his expression — drawing tears in black and white portraits is very obvious. I had to show tears in his eyes using a glimmer effect,” she explains. This is part of her next series — faces of wars and disasters.
A royal jewel from madras
There is a portrait of Sita Devi, born in Madras, who marbecame the princess of Baroda after marriage. “She was known to flaunt her wealth and live the high life. An article states that she once sold an exquisite diamond piece to Harry Winston, the famous jeweller, who in turn sold it to a duchess. The duchess wore it to a party which Sita also attended, flaunting her latest catch, to which Sita said ‘It looks good on her neck, but it looked even better on my ankles’,” Sithara laughs. “This goes to show that Indians were actually wealthier than the British! And we don’t even know about it.”