At first, Srinivasa Reddy’s collection might look like a bunch of postcards from a bygone era. But a closer look reveals, that they are works of art that illustrate the present and everything that comes with it - corruption, development, war and greed.
“I always liked collecting postcards. I have some from the 1920s,” says the artist whose works were on display as part of Search, a recently concluded exhibition. Srinivasa used the postcards as his canvas because he found it to be unique. “Also, they speak of a different era,” he says.
Even though there is a whiff of the golden past, there is also the harsh reality of today in his paintings. This reality is both ironical and satirical.
Srinivasa art looks at the sorry state of affairs in society. For example, in one of his paintings he has sketched the earth as a bomb ready to explode; another paintings shows a frog eating a snake and, in yet another, a man is shown with his finger pointing towards the sky depicting he has control of the world on his fingertip.
Some of the postcards have entirely different themes with images of Ganapati and Jesus painted on the them. Explaining the concept behind these, Srinivasa says, "One year ago when I went to Chennai I found that images of gods were painted on walls to avoid vandalism. This disturbed me. As a sign of protest I drew the same gods on my paintings. During exhibitions or otherwise I explain to people the message behind these paintings. It is my way of spreading awareness,” he says.
Srinivasa paints in a such a way that his images can be perceived as one whole image or as a conglomeration of images.
This artist strongly believes that art should be used as a medium to convey a message. Another striking paintings depicts India with golden safety pins stitched on the boundaries. “This picture shows that even though these shiny golden pins are beautiful from the outside, they inflict pain,” he says.