KOZHIKODE: The lonely traveller’s journeys are always different from those of a mob. His watchful eyes are focused on the minute objects of nature and his surroundings, the sounds do not get immersed in the chattering. From the single window of his room also, his sights are purely monotonous. He views them from deep within, sometimes in greying colours and sometimes in dark hues.
‘Athmam,’ an exhibition of paintings by Krishna Janardhana, being held at the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi Art Gallery, is one such journey and the experiences of a lone traveller. The innerscapes of the painter through years from 1988 to the current are displayed in different modes of techniques ranging from illustration to acrylic and from realism to abstract.
Different fields of work, including that of visualiser, art director and now a teacher, have moulded the painting medium in the artist too. “A gradual shift from realism to surrealism can be seen in my works. That is a reflection of my life too,” says the artist, who received the highly recommended honour in painting by the Lalithakala Akademi in 1995 for his work series, ‘Browny Grieves.’
The presence of a dark god is felt in more than one paintings. Without mentioning the character, a flautist appears in a series of four paintings, which the artist contributes to his own life in an enclosed room, practising flute to overcome his solitude. The impressions of his life in Ooty are also evident in the paintings with the stepped terrain, flora and fauna. His art emerges from the chaos of mind, body, fantasy, imagination, hope, fear, meditation, anger, rebellion, violence and resistance.
While portraying the skull of a burqa-clad woman in the desert, he doesn’t forget to keep the scarlet painting that describes the political assassinations that tore the social life of Kerala. The exhibition will be open till November 19.