HYDERABAD : Artist Kappari Kishan is a man who likes to do things differently. Having nurtured a passion for arts ever since he was a child, Kishan has made the pursuit of arts his life’s goal. And it was the need to stand out from the crowd that made him use various mediums like stone, wood in addition to canvas in his latest exhibit ‘Bhavayami’, a series of paintings on Lord Venkateshwara that opened at Pipal art gallery on Monday. “While there have been many paintings on Lord Venkateshwara. What I have tried to do is paint on different mediums to show my devotion,”says Kishan whose first exhibition in 2007 was a success with all 15 paintings being sold out.
Kishan’s previous works have centered around Telangana women and Buddha. Out of the 40 paintings displayed at the gallery, 23 paintings are on canvas while the rest are a mix of stone and wood paintings. Looking at the paintings that took him an year to complete, one can tell the artist has put his heart and soul in them.
It was after a visit to Tirupati that Kishan decided to incorporate the area of Tirumala as background in his artworks which have been done from memory. “You can see in my previous works also, the city of Hyderabad, the landscape, birds serve as a background, here too I wanted to give small detailing in the paintings with the Lord in the foreground,” adds Kishan who works as a senior art instructor at Jawahar Bal Bhavan.
Ask him about his inspirations and pat comes the reply, “Vaikuntam and Laxman Goud. I really look up to them. Vaikuntam was my senior at Bal Bhavan and his work was an inspiration to me. ”
When Kishan first started out, many drew similarities between his work and those of Vaikuntam who was his senior as both painted Telangana women as their subject.
“I decided to focus on bringing out one particular feature in all my paintings to avoid comparison. You will notice that the hair stands out in some of them as I feel that is most beautiful feature of a women,” adds the 40-year old.
