KOCHI: His is an art that needs no defense; maybe just a new pair of eyes. Armed with the sophistication of simplicity, his monkeys mean business. Sunil Vallarpadam, as the name suggests, hails from Vallarpadam, a fastly-urbanising strip of land in Kochi. His works titled ‘Wilderness unbound- My zoomorphic studies’ are on display at Durbar Hall Art Gallery, as part of three solo exhibitions that opened on November 1 and run through November 10. The five works on display are part of a series he’s been working on for the last two years.
Figures of monkeys take after gibbons, lion-tailed macaques, and African monkeys. Some of them are a figment of his imagination. In each panel, he has placed the monkeys in a landscape he grew up in. The fruits, branches, and leaves that populate his frames are picked from his surroundings.
“This series was a turning point in my art career. I took an interest in the anatomy of monkeys six or seven years ago. Their movements and gestures have always fascinated me,” said Sunil. In one of the paintings, he has flipped the usual hanging position of the bats, and it meets you eye to eye. The nocturnal birds are juxtaposed with lion-tailed macaques, which come out in daylight only.
In yet another painting, the lonesome owls are seen in groups. And in a stylistic twist, animals usually associated with ‘shades of grey’ come in a range of colours. Well, Sunil does have a few tricks up his sleeve.
For starters, the freedom of expression in his colour schemes, brush strokes, liberal use of acrylic and open composition make the work a true feast for the eyes.
His work interacts freely with the untrained eye, a fact made more obvious by the widening pupils of children gathered around the displays. They were imitating the gestures of the monkey figures. One of those monkey see, monkey do moments and for a change, not in a cynical sense. Sunil’s work doesn’t permit an ‘evil eye’; they can only be truly enjoyed from the vantage point of a ‘clean slate’. Indicative of the time of a season, one painting has lush green thickets, and another is diffused with a yellow tint. The yellow tinge and the fruits on the verge of cracking are a commonplace summer postcard, but with his sleight of hand, he pulled a rabbit out of the frame. And there are many more discoveries in store.
‘Wilderness unbound- My zoomorphic studies’ is a sight to behold, mainly due to the treatment and the gargantuan size of the panels. “I find the paintings truly overwhelming. I fell for it at the first look. And the first impression did last. This is my second visit,” said Rakesh, an art enthusiast.
For trained eyes, the paintings come as a bit of a surprise. For one thing, he didn’t play by the book. Breaking the usual background narrative, his figures exist in a single plane. More like the cave art of early humans or old Japanese murals, the paintings’ depth of vision is compromised.
These paintings occupy two dimensions with no vanishing points. The landscape, or owls, or bats for that matter are not mere screensavers in the backdrop, but expertly-curated partners in crime. They interact with the monkey figures as well as the spectators simultaneously. There is more to this visual menagerie than meets the eye. That’s left to the eyes of the beholders.