It was a confluence of colours and expressions of two generations as K. Sreekumaran Nair and his granddaughter Sreedevi V. Menon exhibited their collection of paintings at the Museum Art Gallery.
Sreekumaran's paintings were mostly images of gods and goddesses. What captured the viewers' attention were the sketches made by Sreekumaran in his younger days.
There was a close attention to detail even then as the artist depicted images of Siva and Parvathi, Krishna and Radha, and even a picture of a woman paying obeisance to the gods in a Hindu temple. His latter works were a potpourri of images; there were portraits of personalities, reproductions of Ravi Varma's paintings, and images of gods and goddesses in colour. The arresting paintings among Sreekumaran's works were perhaps the portrait of Jawaharlal Nehru and a painting of the Gitopadesam.
A thing to be noted about the artist is that he has paid an excellent job of capturing the eyes of the characters in his paintings.
His people didn't wear dead blank looks, their eyes carried expressions. If Krishna and Radha looked in love, Siva and Parvathi, and even Ganesh in another frame seemed to be in benevolent moods as they showered blessings on viewers.
Different expressions
While Sreekumaran seemed adapt at bringing faces to life, his granddaughter was more at ease with nature.
Says Sreedevi: “My grandfather is my inspiration. I love his portraits and although I have tried my hand at painting faces, I'm not satisfied.” Their exhibition of paintings concluded on Sunday.
