THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A collection of overlapping symbols and colours aptly describe the paintings kept on display at the Alliance Francaise art gallery in the city. Showcasing around 15 artworks by artists Deepa Ram, B Balagopalan, Sadanandhan E C and Ashok Kumar Gopalan, the venue has transformed into a visual imagery of forms and patterns on canvas. “That’s the reason why we named it ‘Elements’,” said Deepa Ram, one of the artists.
Experimenting with different styles of the abstract, each of their paintings have an individual touch. While Deepa chose to dabble with forms shaped from dots, Sadanandan and Ashok showcased semi-abstract art through their frames.
The highlight though was the set of colourful patterns blending together through Deepa’s acrylic paintings. Depicting nature in it’s various shades through her art, Deepa’s aim is also to create awareness about an age-old ethnic art form. She has combined her individual elements with the aboriginal style of paintings. “I have not made it entirely aboriginal but blended it with my own imagination and colours.
True aboriginal art use natural colours, but, I have completed my paintings using acrylic,”she said. While one of her works depicted the world under the sea, with different forms and shapes showing variety of life, another among her abstract paintings portrayed a snake coiled around a large image of an eye. “The work represents how our perspectives are manipulated by the serpent, which is society. It is for the spectator to decide what he or she makes out of an artwork.”
A self-styled artist currently settled in Australia, it didn’t take long for the college lecturer to be fascinated with the complex style of painting. “I also had an aborigine friend who made me more fascinated with the style,” she said. It took me a month to complete each of the works. Capturing the style of aboriginal paintings, Sadanandan prefers to portray his love for Wayanad and its greenery through his semi-abstract works, where images of faces, animals and nature overlap in a collage form.
Balagopalan’s works are a blend of abstract lines and shapes on canvas, while Ashok comes up with semi-abstract images of people to portray the voyeuristic aspect of society. The painting exhibition was inaugurated on Friday by artist Sajitha R Sanker at the Alliance Francaise art gallery. A veena performance by Poly Varghese was also held on the occasion. The exhibition will be on till June 30. The gallery will be open to the public from 10 am to 6 pm.