KOCHI: Thiruvananthapuram native artist Aswany Kumar is on cloud nine. His work ‘The traveller’ was exhibited at the All India Art Competition and Exhibition in Hyderabad, organised by the Telangana Government, on July 31. “The work portrayed a traveller’s mind and his relation with the sea,” he says.
Earlier, he had displayed two paintings at Parampara, an exhibition conducted on last month at the Museum auditorium, Thiruvananthapuram. According to Aswany, he derived inspiration for the work after a fracture. “While I was admitted at the hospital, I examined bone arrangement in various X-rays. The idea of doing works related to bone chemistry emerged from the experience,” he says.
Aswany’s love for art began in his childhood when he would draw images on the walls of his house. “I drew agricultural labourers who worked in the fields close to my house,” he says. After Aswany’s family recognised his talent, they allowed him to do a diploma course in painting from the College of Fine Arts in 1988.
Aswany was influenced by the likes of legendary artists Vincent van Gogh and Salvador Dali, during his college years. “My oil paintings employed the use of rough brush strokes, just the way van Gogh did,” he says. Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ and Dali’s ‘Persistence of Memory’ are Aswany’s favourites.
In 1995, Aswany received the Lalit Kala Akademi award for his work ‘Myth and Humans’, which was developed from his experiences of living in a village. After a brief stint with Kerala Kaumudi as an trainee artist, Aswany joined Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in 1997. In 2014, Aswany taught at the Kalari art camps that was conducted by Kerala Lalit Kala Academy. He also taught children at the first kalari camp organised by Lalit Kala Academy in 2015.