CHENNAI: There’s a special place in life for the many ‘firsts’ it has to offer. After Thursday, Archana Karunakaran will have yet another first to add to her long list of beginnings her first art show in CP Art Centre’s Shakunthala Art Gallery. At the behest of Nandita Krishnan herself. The dentist who moonlights as an artist in her non-clinic hours could not be more excited.
“I’ve been painting since 2009 after I finished my Master’s in Dentistry. That’s when I really got down to painting; till then I had only been sketching like everybody else. This exhibition features the paintings and line art I’ve done over the past two years. That doesn’t mean these are new ideas; they have been around but found expression only recently. Maybe the pandemic helped, allowing me to take a step back from the regular schedule,” she narrates.
What stands out are the two series that contrast each other — the Black and White series and the Rainbow series. While the first is a set of line art on paper of everyday human emotions, the second is multicolour renditions of traditionally monochromatic subjects. The former depicts merry children, a weathered snake-charmer and common people like you and me, while the latter brings to technicolour life classic portrayals of deities and gods. “I find that perception is a truly personal emotion.
So, the black and white line art is so that it does not colour the perception of the viewer. The extremely colourful ones I like to use on subjects like sculptures, for they are usually just in gold or brass. What would it look like with colours? That’s what interested me. I am experimenting with a lot of styles,” she explains.
Amid all this work, the place of honour is reserved for Archana’s rendition of Ponniyin Selvan. The huge painting places its protagonist, Arulmozhivarman, in all his princely glory. Yet, it goes beyond mere portraiture to bring more elements of the epic to life through artistically placed panels — of the baby prince in the arms of Ponni (River Kaveri), a portrait of Kundavai Devi, his love for elephants and tigers depicted in his sword hilt, the coronation of Karikala Cholan built into the blade. All this was the consequence of a well-timed dare, it seems. It was Archana’s cousin who challenged her to paint Ponniyin Selvan but only after reading the book and finding a better representation of the story. And Archana did just that; after six months of reading and research, she produced her biggest work yet.
Archana would like to produce more such art. Even as we are fast losing our literary works of yore and at least, the common knowledge of the same, she wants to leave behind something of it in her artwork for future generations. “I am looking to explore other stories. A lot of stories are being lost — stories that are rooted in culture and tradition; they have a lot in way of general philosophy for life too. I want to bring them back,” she says.
The exhibition will run till Sunday.