T.R. Rajesh is a travel enthusiast. If he is not travelling with friends and family, he is travelling with his students. And while most would capture the sights around them with their trusty cameras, Rajesh however, captures them on canvas.
‘Sojourn – a travelogue with paint brush’, an exhibition of watercolour paintings by Rajesh are a collection of some of the rustic scenes and landscapes that caught his fancy during his travels. These works in swirls of green, yellow, blue and all the colours in between, transport viewers to the places he has visited: Palakkad, Puducherry, Nagercoil, Manali…
“The exhibition contains some of my works in watercolours from the last 12 years,” says Rajesh who teaches art to students of Kendriya Vidyalaya SAP, Peroorkada.
A graduate in Fine Arts from College of Fine Arts, Thiruvananthapuram, Rajesh has been teaching students of various schools the intricacies of art. “My first job was teaching students of St. Thomas Higher Secondary School.”
The artist who enjoys doing ‘spot on’ paintings says he always carries an art kit when he travels. “Those red palm series were painted during class excursions to Veega Land and Happy Land and that painting of a white horse amidst green hills was during a trip to Manali.
“The canvas which features two men gazing at the sea are of my friends at Chowara beach. It was drizzling when we were at the beach and although I had an umbrella above my head, a couple of raindrops managed to fall on the painting. The drops have lent the picture an air of authenticity,” says Rajesh adding that there is a story behind each of the 47 paintings exhibited. He recounts his tales on his blog http://brownandviolets.blogspot.in/.
The captivating thing about Rajesh’s paintings is that most of them have close attention to detail; the painting of a mountain range in Palakkad, for instance. If you pause and take a close look, you can see a storm brewing as the clouds in the horizon darken.
The artiste also writes children’s books and has illustrated books for publishers such as Tulika, Balasahitya Institute and DC Books. One of the books he has written, ‘Upside Down’, won the Balashaithya Puraskaram for Best Picture Book in 2010.
Rajesh who has conducted three solo exhibitions is currently looking forward to holding an exhibition of his acrylic paintings in May.
‘Sojourn – a travelogue with paint brush’ is on at Alliance Francaise de Trivandrum until April 12.
