For most, Engineering Graphics might seem like a demon armed with sharp protractors and firm rulers. But tame it a little, and it plays up your creativity. Artist Rajny Krishnan, a guest faculty – Art, Aesthetics and Design at the Department of Engineering Design at IIT Madras, tells us how. “Look at the gradation of colours in this painting,” she points at one in the series ‘Seed of the Seedless — when the creation is transcended’ that is on display at Art Houz, “I have lightened and darkened the areas in such a way that from whichever point your eye starts scanning the picture, it completes one full tour of it — and doesn’t miss even an inch.”
It works. Techniques like the Rule of Thirds (based on the theory that the human eye naturally gravitates to intersection points that occur when an image is split into thirds), the Golden Mean (the desirable middle ground between two extremes) and Sacred Geometry (patterns, shapes and forms that make up all living things) have every nook and cranny of the canvases shouting for attention. And just to be doubly sure that the focus of the viewer is intact, Rajny has placed elements like a crescent moon (referring to lord Shiva), cactus (or a trident) and seed (representing life) at strategic locations on the paintings.
“Engineering drawing is not just about isometric drawing and CAD (Computer Aided Design); it has a lot of scope for creativity,” she justifies her point with another set of paintings. By now, the demonish references to engineering drawing seem irrelevant.
Rajny has been into painting and sculpting for three decades. Quite ironically, she realised her love for art when she was enrolled into a dance class in Kalakshetra at the age of 10. The art classes were going on in the adjacent room, and the urge to join them took over.
“I was the happiest when I was alone with a plain white sheet and colours,” she recalls. She quit dance and started training under artist K. Srinivasulu. Later, she took sculpting classes from Kalasagaram Rajagopal, and assisted him for eight years. A brief undergraduate course in Commerce aside, her life has pretty much revolved around art, she says.
Like many artists, colours, for Rajny, are just a medium to express herself. An ardent follower of Ramana Maharshi’s teachings, Rajny walks with a bunch of spiritual questions inside her head. “Am I created? Am I in creation? Or is the creation in me?” she pulls out mind-boggling questions from the Vedanta. “I have tried to represent this metaphorically through the form of a seed — which is the beginning of everything,” she says.
The exhibition is on till November 20, between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m, at Art Houz, Kasturi Rangan Road, Alwarpet.
