THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:Dr V Ramankutty, a scientist-artist and the youngest son of former Chief Minister C Achutha Menon, has always been fascinated by coincidences when he dealt with epidemiology, a branch of medicine which deals with the incidence of diseases. The quintessential scientist in him was intrigued by the randomness in diseases and life in general much before finance professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb popularised the term Black Swan to describe extremely difficult to predict events. The artist in Ramankutty explores coincidences of life forms and attempts some predictions through his paintings. It is his sci-fi on canvas.
Dr Ramankutty’s painting exhibition ‘Imagined Forms’ is now on at Alliance Francaise where around 25 paintings are on display till Saturday. The paintings are abstract in acrylic with bold colour combinations that give scope for multiple interpretations of the dimension one wants to look at it. He says his paintings are done without much planning and often out of momentary inspirations. “The forms we see keep changing yet retain a continuity. I am curious about the real nature of forms and use my art to introduce new forms,” he said with a nonchalant air.
Dr Ramankutty is a self-taught artist yet art runs through his family. His father’s younger brother Gopu Menon was a popular art teacher in Thrissur. “Even my father used to draw though I have not seen much of his works. But I had the opportunity to travel with him to the former Soviet Union and saw the paintings from the Tsar era at Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg,” he says. He himself dabbled in portraits and landscape till he realised it did not excite him any more. Serious art took shape in him from his 30s.
Dr Ramankutty is indebted to pioneering public health activist Dr C R Soman for his collection of art books. He considers late Shangrila Sasikumar as one of his mentors with who he had conducted exhibition at Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai.
Dr Ramankutty heads the Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies, the Health Sciences wing of the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences & Technology.