"I want to explore how traditional imagery can exist in contemporary times,” says multimedia artist Masuram Ravikanth, who prints vintage images on archival pictures and reinterprets them with works of masters such as Jamini Roy and Laxma Goud. “Each picture consists of original works of famed artists plus my own rendition of a master in his/her signature style,” he says.
So, you have an old photo of a couple shot in a studio with faces painted in the traditional styles of Telangana legend, Thota Vaikuntam. Another image shows the last Nizam of Hyderabad along with British officers and the picture of a naked woman superimposed on it, reminiscent of the sweeping strokes of MF Husain.
Stunning images from the 18th and 19th centuries, of women, royalty and families, formed the medium for the artist’s recent show, A Reflection of Yesterday’s Truth and Today’s Imagination, at Hyderabad’s Kalakriti art gallery, which provided the artist images from its archives to turn into portents, where both the past and present co-exist. Some images are also taken from local lexicons such as the Cheriyal masks of Telangana or epics like the Ramayana.
The past has been a recurrent theme in the 40-year-old’s oeuvre.
A third-generation artist (his grandfather Masuram Pullaiah was a thespian, while his father Masuram Rajendra Prasad was a photographer), Ravikanth looks to his lineage for inspiration. His tryst with digitised archives began in 2017 when he recreated photographs clicked by his father at his studio in Jangaon village of Telangana. His endeavour got a boost with a 45-day residency in Paris—a collaboration between Bordeaux Metropole and Krishnakriti Foundation, Hyderabad—where he perfected the manual superimposition of archival photographs.
The artist points to an image that was shot by his father and features himself and his siblings. “I ended up painting images of Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra on them to showcase that whether gods or humans, the relationships remain the same,” he says, adding that the juxtaposition is an attempt to ensure that people do not forget their roots.
With more than 40 works, which encompass the length and breadth of styles that define Indian art, the show presented narratives that thrive on nostalgia.
That only a section of the photograph is worked on, is the biggest challenge, says the Hyderabad-based artist. “I need to limit my interpretation and not overdo it,” he says, adding, “I don’t want to identify myself with only one genre. I want to explore installations, sculpture and other mediums.”