Despite being situated on a busy arterial road, the Kasthuri Sreenivasan Art Gallery exudes an air of calm and quiet. Even the conversations inside the building are muted. The gallery is hosting the second of the Meet Coimbatore Artists 2017; this is also the 159th exhibition in this space, says M. Kuppuraj, the manager.
On the first floor, T. Mathiniraiselvan and K. Santosh Raman are showing their works. Mathiniraiselvan was interested in art from childhood, he says. “I was drawing things from the age of four and went on to do a Post-Graduate Diploma in Fine Arts from Chennai’s Government College of Fine Arts. I had inspiring teachers like Santhanaraj, Alphonso Aruldoss among others.”
However, after he graduated, he began working as artist-photographer at Coimbatore’s Government Hospital. He kept in touch with his art through the 35 years of his service and, after retirement, plunged into it full time. He has held shows in Bengaluru and Chennai.
His themes are predominantly ruralscapes and human figures and the majority is oil and acrylic on canvas with a few pencil sketches. A fisherwoman with her catch, a woman herding goats, the portrait of a gypsy and a water carrier are some of the more striking images. One image, of a little girl holding a ball, carries a hint of reined in movement; almost as if the girl is asking the viewer to play with her.
If Mathiniraiselvan portrays vignettes of a familiar world, K. Santosh Raman’s works are totally abstract. A graduate from NIFT, Mumbai, Raman stumbled into painting when he did one for a senior. “People liked that and asked me to do more for them,” he says.
K Santosh Raman and his works
While he does occasional acrylic on canvas, he prefers to experiment with media like wood and steel. “I don’t want to do the usual prints,” he shrugs. “Working with wood and steel is interesting because, if I make a wrong move, I have start all over again. When painting, it’s just question of layering.”
For this show, much of his works depict a combination of Buddha and Shiva. Asked about it, he says, “Both are kind of extreme divinities. I thought it would be interesting to combine the two.”
So you have Buddha’s head on the base of a linga, or Buddha with the crescent moon and the river on his head.
What, however, catches my eye is a patch of white. The painting features concentric circles of white, which give the impression of churning. A Nataraja-like figure at the bottom and a linga seemingly falling through the white completes the image. An identical image in red is framed next to this one. Seen together, the two make for a compelling visual. Raman’s background in textile design helps with his art, he says. Sometimes he uses textile paints for his art or expands on a design he has created for a t-shirt.
Meet Coimbatore Artists 2017
Until March 28 from 10.00 am to 6.00 pm
The works being displayed are also for sale.
Kasthuri Sreenivasan Art Gallery, Avanashi Road, Coimbatore
Call 0422-2574110
