BANGALORE: One platform, and 26 artists, and almost as many styles.
Palette 2009, an exhibition of paintings by Palakkad Chitrakala Trust, currently being showcased at Chitrakala Parishath, is a display of versatility. There are works from mural paintings in the tradition of Kerala temples by artists like Manikandan Punnakkal and Sashidharan to symbolic art like one showing freedom by Gireesan Bhattathiripad.
Most of the works are oil on canvas, although the treatment by each artist is different. At the first glance, Baijudev’s ‘After Bath’ series looks as if he has worked on grains of sand. A closer look shows it is merely a technique of brush strokes that he has developed. His subject, like many others’, is rural Kerala. The series portrays nude women, with towels wrapped around their heads, fresh after their bath, with nature as the backdrop. The drawings seem very chiselled, and although they are done in solid colours, there is an effect of light and shade.
Bijoy Velekkatte’s paintings are also striking. His three works form a series showing an underwater world of a whale and a shoal of fry, swimming over leaves, then over some thorny undergrowth, and finally, over a fisherman’s net, which spells doom.
The luminous and aquatic effect of the deep, dark underwater world created by the multiple shades of blue (the only colour used) is exotic.
Shadanan Aniketh’s rural life scenes in the canvases have a collagelike appearance, with patches of colour used to create the entire picture.
They are bright.
Devedas Varma’s paintings are simple. They are almost childlike in the portrayal of rural landscapes.
Jos PO’s portrait of a Brahmin is another representation of the quite, bucolic life but with the shadow of entrenched social stigmas, and it has a pleasing pastel effect.
Another artist who draws attention is VR Sivadas, especially his painting on cosmic love, showing Shiva and Parvati as two mountains. The mosaic effect he creates with his brush captivates the viewer. The exhibition is surely a panorama of different genres of painting, from the realistic to the abstract. It is on till today.