CHENNAI: From a face-down terracotta horse that invited Trojan Horse associations to a cryptic stone sculpture that had people going “It’s a face, it’s a dolphin. No! It’s boulder!”, from abstract acrylic paintings to solid string art, there was much to witness at Lalit Kala Akademi’s regional centre on Greams Road. All par the course at one of the most active galleries in the city, you’d think. Not this time; for this is the first show they have put up — displaying the pieces of their research scholars and working artists — in nearly a year. M Sovan Kumar, regional secretary, explains why.
“Because of the pandemic and the lockdowns, our research scholars were asked to work from home. But they were really suffering without having the space (studio) or the equipment to work. They need the instruments and machinery, which is not available at home. It was only in December that we reopened our studios and the artists were able to resume their work,” he details. On display was what they — 38 of them — managed to produce with the support for the Akademi’s studios.
For artists, being back at the studio has offered great relief, allowing them to finish projects that had been in the works for too long. Especially for people like J Gunasekar, who works with stone. “The first lockdown was announced three months after I started my research scholarship. But I need studio space for my sculptures. I was working at home, because I still had to submit projects every month. So I worked with what was available — mostly plaster of Paris and scrap materials.
I was able to redo it with proper materials only after the studio opened,” he narrates. Senior artist D Nedunchelain, who uses the Akademi’s studios for his ceramic works, had a different story to tell. He was in Australia for an exhibition when the pandemic struck. While the expo itself was cut short, he had to wait eight months before he could get back to India. The projects he had on display — ceramic interpretations of king/queen and princess — were ones he had started even before he’d set out for Aussie land.
“I came back just in time for them to open the studios and finished my work. They had safely stored all the pieces (extremely delicate for they had not been baked and set) in a separate room,” he says. While the going has been tough for artists the whole of last year, they have found ways to persist and keep producing good art, it seems. And inspiration is everywhere.
For S Arunagiri, a mixed media artist, it was the environmental cause of waste management and saving our seas and the life it holds that inspired his work. M Raja, on his part, returned to the era of kings and the essence of womanhood to find his inspiration. While it was scenes from everyday life and childhood influences that found representation in Shreya Chajjed’s work, it was questions about what we see and how we see it that seems to have fuelled M Hariharasudhan’s. Ultimately, there’s plenty to witness and devour.
The exhibition is open till February 1, from 11 am to 7 pm.