Tryst with tenderness
KOCHI: As the steps lead you to the recently-opened Longtime Art Gallery at Jawahar Nagar, you will hear the famous song, “You’ll find out tenderness goes a long, long way!” by American singer-songwriter Sam Cooke being played on the speaker and the lyrics projected onto a wall. The song entreats a young lover to be tender to his beloved.
“I, however, like to replace the image of the loved one with life itself. All the works displayed here portray how the artists have responded to strife with tenderness,” says Radha Gomaty, the curator of the exhibition titled ‘Tenderness goes a long long way’
The group exhibition is a collection of paintings by eight well-known artists who explore different themes through their works and a young Sufi singer, Swagath Sivakumar, who interprets the title of the exhibition through a jugalbandi of songs. “All the artists were selected for the show based on the common connection in their works. Each artist has worked with delicate things to convey a strong message and there is a tenderness about each of the paintings,” says Radha, who the coordinator of EkaRasa, a platform with a vision of ‘All for art and art for all.’
Artist Asha Nandan works initially with free scribbles and light washes of the colour, finally adding thick strokes to her paintings. Asha was a mathematics teacher before she took a short break from her career.She has been fully exploring the artist in her and experimenting more with colours. Cat is one of the recurring motif in her works.
Shoranur-based artist Ranjith Raman moved to Ahmedabad to learn mirror-work embroidery popular in that part of the country. His artistic medium is primarily thread which he sometimes combines with painting. All his works experiment with different types of stitches and textures created by embroidery. His work titled ‘Hidden’ is one such piece of art which has a mixed embroidery texture.
Artist Madhu Venugopalan engages with the issues of contemporary art and expression. Titled ‘An antique piece of love’, he explores the theme of floating fantasies associated with the beds adorned for the nuptial night. Different beds stacked up and decorated with flower garlands become images in his works.
After coming across many trials in life, artist Johns Mathew finds art as an effective drug to keep him going. The image of ‘tree’ in his paintings is resilient. His work, ‘Nothing grows beneath a banyan tree’, speaks about how one turns a new leaf from barrenness.
Artist Nadan P V turns himself into a sumo wrestler in his works. One of his works is a painting inspired by Pieter Bruegel, a Dutch artist who focuses on metaphorical themes. Wild animals such as bison also become a silent obsession for Nadan.
It was after becoming a father that artist Jagesh Edakkad realised the extent of control of nature on human life. ‘Belongings of my angel’ is a work he created after his daughter was born which include images of baby clothes, baby powder, tonics. Just like Jagesh, Hima Hariharan works are extremely detailed and delicate things from nature.