Many artists find painting in watercolour quite nightmarish, given that it has a mind of its own, magnifies every wrong turn of the brush, dries at a different pace in different climates. Ask artist Sujith SN, 42, who watches the clock like a hawk so he’s intimated when the paint layers have dried and new ones need to be quickly dabbed on. With his ongoing solo, Seer–Seen, at Vadehra Art Gallery till March 27 (if the COVID-19 panic doesn’t play spoiler), Sujith tells us how he’s managed to tame the beast.
Do you make art every day?
I practice every day at my studio at home, usually from 10:00am to 7:30pm.
Why the fascination with watercolour?
During my BFA [College of Fine Arts, Thrissur], I worked in oil, acrylic, installations, graphics, printmaking, calligraphy, and finally only with charcoal and pastels that I did my first solo in 2008. With these mediums, I could exactly predict and control what I would make, and that became boring. I want both the idea and the process to challenge me. You can rectify a mistake in oil by painting over it, in charcoal by rubbing it over, but in watercolour, you can’t. Watercolour painting is like a theatre performance; once you act before an audience, the mistakes remain. I have had many accidents with watercolours and I view these as positive revelations, as chances to grow.
How do you deal with the unpredictability of the medium?
I’ve been working with water colours for 10 years. Still, the first day or the initial hours of starting a new work is really hell, when I am trying to control the medium. I put and remove colour on the paper, layer by layer, almost 10-15 times. At one point, I get tensed not knowing what I’ll get on the surface. But if I keep on going, despite the risk, I actually get a surprise.
Do you like to paint in silence?
Initially, it was difficult with my two kids growing up. But I have overcome these distractions with my wife’s help. I also play music by Kumar Gandharva, Fateh Ali Khan, Abida Parveen, Mallikarjun Mansoor, because I don’t know the language (laughs), so the lyrics can’t disturb me, and I like how their sounds merge. I also switch off my phone.
You’re known for incorporating everyday life in your works.
Every morning, I go for a walk in the parks near my house, and sometimes, I take a walk in the city. On these walks, I make short notes or rough scribbles on site, take photographs on my mobile phone or camera, print these out and keep it all in a reference library book that I’ve made. I like going deep inside city where the villages are, where spaces that were used in the past and those that carry glimpses of future exist, like ongoing construction sites, signboards of ‘this property belongs to…’ or political posters in Marathi, the script which I can’t read but turn into images in my work.