CHENNAI: As we stepped inside the gallery at Lalit Kala Akademi, we were welcomed by bright colours. And the theme was easy to identify — Mahabharata. Around 35 female students of artist Prince Thonnakkal from Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, New Delhi and Chennai have done a series of 113 mural art depicting the great epic. Right from Lord Ganesha writing the epic to the famous Kurukshetra battle, the canvases displayed the various plots with different layers of emotions.
“This exhibition was inspired by the success of Ramayana murals, that was held four years ago,” said Prince Thonnakkal The exhibition was inaugurated on Wednesday and actor Sivakumar graced the occasion. Gopika Varma, Mohiniattam dancer and Manian Selvan, artist, were also present.
The evolution of emotions in prime characters of Mahabharata — Bhishma, Gandhari, Pandavas, Kauravas, Draupadi was displayed chronologically. The painters are aged between 35 and 75. “Painting is a stress buster for me. I am a retired scientist and it helps me lead an active life,” said Rema Devi, one of the eight painters from Chennai. It took her almost 15 days to finish her piece. “Learning from Prince Thonnakkal was an enriching experience. He used to draw the outline of different figures while explaining how to make them expressive,” she added. Her paintings used different colours for different emotion.
Vijay Nirmala was one among the 10 artists whom Prince taught at her house. “He is strict when it comes to maintaining the traditional methods and colour compositions. But I have used purple and blue to describe heaven and water respectively,” she said.
Another artist, Meena Kumari stuck to the original five colour theory for her paintings. The retired accounts officer of a post office said, “Mural art is a form of temple art in Kerala. It is basically painted to narrate historic tales.” She has experimented with various background elements in her paintings. “I decided to draw Om to symbolise the sound, in the middle of a sun. It represents the famous shloka where Lord Krishna talks about his omnipresence on the earth to Arjuna,” she explained. Most of the colours used in mural art are made from natural elements like rocks for red and neelambari leaves for green.
All the 35 artists were felicitated during the event.
Book launch
A book on mural paintings was also launched during the event by Prince. “I would encourage people to buy the book and explain the concept of murals to their children,” he said.