Mary Samual’s calm demeanour, as she took us through her artwork displayed at the Alliance Française gallery in Thiruvananthapuram, was in sharp contrast to the dance of emotions that probably fills her mind.
In the frames were the results of her two years of work, the strokes and colours showing deep diligence even as they reflected a natural flow and, markedly, a humility — or rather, an insouciance — towards her art.
What strikes one is the journey of a reader through a book. We have all felt it. Many speak or write about it. Some prefer to paint.
“What I felt, I painted,” she says, adding that the paintings were not thought over, even from the perspective of the writer.
“It was my first feeling with those words, the words that engulfed me into a world, whatever world the writer was creating in the book.”
By the book, she means artist and writer Jayakrishnan’s first novel, ‘Chithrakathayil Avante Bhoothangal’.
Acclaimed in several reviews as one of modern Malayalam literature’s freshest takes on magical realism, a genre much discussed and explored in the literary context here, the narrative romances a bizarre reality where the physicality of existence merges effortlessly with ruminative imagination.
Here, storytelling seems to be the protagonist, giving power to creative thought that can tamper with the concreteness of what we perceive as real.
“To grasp all these may require either a questioning mind or a philosophical intuitiveness. I didn’t explore both. The book was a suggestion from a friend, Salil, who wanted me to paint after years of hibernation with art,” explains Mary, as she points to the pictures of how she perceived Sanjayan, a character in the book.
“And as I got about reading the book, it opened doors in me that helped me to feel the chapters through the imagery it was trying to create. In a way, the book in itself is graphical.”
There are 25 paintings based on the book at the exhibition. None is titled. “It is more about what I felt with the instance created in the novel. The process was impulsive,” Mary smiles.
Her tryst with art, in itself, was impulsive. She had been painting since childhood but was discouraged by a conventional upbringing from pursuing an education in fine arts.
“I chose to study literature, after which I began to work too in a related field,” says the language professional, who now works in Mumbai.
After stepping into work, art was far away from her for a long time. The turning point came during the pandemic, when a personal loss led her back to the art she had hardly indulged in beyond occasional classes and online sessions.
“Slowly, this book came to me, and as I painted it, I began to feel the healing,” she says, adding that she has no expectations from her art.
“I don’t paint with a purpose; neither do I have any plans. I will paint as and when my heart rushes to explain my emotions through colours, strokes and images, only because I cannot express myself in any other way better than that.”