An appalam seller on his scooter smiles jovially. In another frame, a cheetah and deer battle it out. Elsewhere, the Tanjore temple stands majestically, in the glow of afternoon sunlight.
The art exhibition “Nature and Life” features around 40 works by the members of the Kasthuri Sreenivasan Art and Literary Club.
The paintings reflected the many moods, colours and themes that had fascinated the artists enough to capture them on canvas. A veiled lady looks out of the canvas of A. Chokkalingam, as does another woman grazing cows in a background of bright reds and oranges. It is women again with A. Narayanan who has chosen to paint a happy pot-seller, balancing five pots on her head, and with Balashanmugham who has a toy seller surrounded by her colourful toys in his painting.
Vikram has painted a motionless bullock cart and a mother elephant tugging at her baby with her trunk , while goats graze outside a dilapidated building in S. Tamilarasan’s painting.
Light and shade
Many of the paintings look almost like a photograph. The flower seller by Gokul Vijayan is one.
The play of light and shadow continues in Robinson’s work where a shaft of light penetrates a dense grove of trees.
There is some copper metal work too by Balashanmugham who has rendered a huge dragon fly in copper mounted on a wooden frame. The works are bustling with activity. Oils, water colours, sketch pens, charcoal, a myriad techniques and mediums have been used to bring alive the canvasses.
The paintings are also on sale with the prices ranging between
Rs. 1250 and Rs. 15,000. The exhibition is on at Kasthuri Sreenivasan Art Gallery, till April 30, from 10 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. For details, call 0422-2574110.
