His works are not cosmetically beautiful, but are quite fascinating because of their constant allusion to the land, the people and the environment. N Srinivasan’s craftsmanship and unusual context are arresting
beyond words. He is one of the most compelling artists in the current scene and it is difficult to compare Srinivasan with any other contemporary painter. Born in the small town of Rajamannargudi, Thanjavur district, in a Saivite family, Srinivasan found himself drawn to art in his childhood itself. There are celebrations in his village throughout the year. The farmers worshipped many gods and goddesses, painted the walls of temples and their houses. They were also involved in terracotta work, and it was natural for him to lean towards art. When he grew up, the artist joined the Madras College of Arts and Crafts for a five-year integrated course in painting and did a post-graduation in Public Administration in 2003.
After completing his education, Srinivasan returned to Thanjavur and having seen the numerous Gods and Goddesses in temples — big and small — was drawn towards Hindu mythology. His first paintings were figurative in nature and because of his devotion, he was given the privilege of sitting in a temple and painting. He, however, did not copy any temple art and his original creations embraced the human being, animals, birds, vegetation — the entire environment in short. But the focal point in each of his paintings was the Thanjavur farmer. For 15 years, he dominated the artist’s canvas, and Srinivasan called his works, “Celebrations”.
Then, Srinivasan left behind his obsession with Thanjavur and began travelling to experience life in other parts of the country. There are moments, when by way of contact with objects whose scale is far removed from the everyday, we
become unmoored momentarily from the set of references that custom has established for us. Most often it feels exhilarating, if somewhat unsettling. The travelling brought about a qualitative change in Srinivasan’s art. Now instead of painting with a brush, he uses the computer.
Success came after hundreds of hours of hard work. He began mixing various softwares and programming languages to create line, colour, texture, light and space. It took four to five hours to form a line, a colour was selected after going through 10 to 15 softwares and the painting itself would take 400 hours. After months of experimental printing, Srinivasan mastered the process of mixing to such perfection that whatever he visualised as a painter became art on the printer.
His work is so innovative that even professionals may not be able to analyse how it was produced.
The artist’s task is not the accurate rendering of the environment but of his soul — his feelings should be reflected in the art. Time and place are credited with building of the most powerful of geniuses. This is particularly true of those most sensitive souls — artists. One can, therefore, say that in the discussion of someone’s artistic and spiritual development, the description of his homeland deserves special mention.
As a sequel to “Celebrations”, Srinivasan created a new series of paintings called “Tracing life”. As he travelled throughout the country, he studied the lifestyles of all classes of people and discovered a common characteristic — everyone wanted peace and happiness. Everyone was in search of love and camaraderie.
Having made this discovery, Srinivasan wanted to depict this universal Indianness in his paintings. He had to search for new colours and new picturisations, which was not easy. First, he had to evolve cool as well as warm colours according to the climate that pervaded the region. Mixing hundreds of colours, he arrived at Java green, Sriblue, 369 red, Kurinjiviolet and Cholabrown. As the background texture, he used the land and its various people, churches, temples, monuments and travel photographs. A million colours were again mixed to make animated installations for this series.
Srinivasan paints with candour, and while these paintings do speak of certain truths, we feel that we are being addressed by an artist-philosopher who is firm in his faith, a believer whose spiritual intuition is his sole world.