CHENNAI: We all have a memory we would like to capture. The visuals, sounds and smells of which we could recreate anywhere at will. Chennai-raised Rekha Ravikumar’s illustrations are reminiscent of such a nostalgic wish. An architect by qualification, she picked up the brush after several years, when she moved to Muscat, Oman, with the onset of the pandemic in 2020. “I started experimenting then, mostly with watercolours. And then, I posted the works across social media platforms, even opened an online store ‘The Moon Lotus’ studio by the end of the year — to gauge how people would react to it. When I first posted my art, people were surprised that I could even do this. So, slowly, I began to invest a little more time every day,” she says.
Seems like home
Initially, she drew inspiration from nature as they best suit the watercolour medium, she explains. But with growing interest, she diversified into other avenues — most significantly, those of landmarks (owing to her career) and foods from back home. Idli and vada on an elai, pushcarts along beaches, steaming hot filter coffee, Bharatanatyam hand poses, chicken biryani — every recreation or interpretation of a memory found her closer to home. “If I paint something for two hours, I think of all the memories related to the art in that time.
A lot of memories (have made their way into my art). I went to college at Anna University, and our hangout used to be the Elliot’s Beach, which was very close to where I lived. Then I used to also go for runs — and marathons — along Napier Bridge, and I would commute by the Senate House, which is a beautiful building,” she elaborates; all of these, she has made, with brush to paper. Rekha is not trained as an artist and mostly uses reference images as a guide but she still finds a way to sneak in her own elements — a different colour here, a few more people there. Like how her illustration of Wankhede Stadium does not depict just the structure, but the hustle-bustle around it.
Before shifting to Chennai in 1995 as a young child, Rekha lived in Mumbai and so, she also finds inspiration in the city that never sleeps. Few as they may be — since she was hardly there for even 10 years — her memories of Mumbai have a lot in common with those of Chennai. “I have really vague memories of Mumbai. But I remember enjoying the city; having lots of friends with whom I would play. Both Mumbai and Chennai are coastal cities so I am used to being around beaches. It’s somewhere we always went for summer vacations and weekends.
And these memories from both the cities have stuck with me. Maybe that’s why many of my illustrations are on beaches,” she says. In a recent post on Facebook, Rekha — or as she refers to herself, the beach girl — shares a collection of paintings on beaches. Swathes of various blues, browns and perhaps a little red or white, shape the Chennai Lighthouse at Marina, Karl Schmidt Memorial at Elliots beach, and the Shore Temple in Mahabalipuram.
Shared nostalgia
As Rekha’s interest bloomed, she invested in better tools, upscaled her canvases from the previous postcard size, and even found others who found home in her works. People began showing an interest in purchasing her art. “A friend of mine asked for my illustration of Chepauk Stadium. She said it reminded her of Chennai and since she no longer lived there, she wanted it to hang up in her house,” she says. But this was only the start of requests. Eventually, Rekha established her studio and began selling her works on Etsy. “Now that I have a store, I realise why people relate to my work. Just like me, they miss the place they have come from.
Many of my customers tell me that these (illustrations) are their memories of Chennai. There are some who have been staying in the US for 30 years and these are the things they can hold on to. Of course, there are photographs. But in photos, everything is clear, but with paintings, they can imagine and reminisce those memories,” Rekha observes. While there is much on Rekha’s canvas that belongs to Chennai and Mumbai, she also dabbles in other kinds of art, including family portraits, paintings of dogs, foods across India and more.
Visit @themoonlotusart on Instagram.