Achudan regularly cycled past the thatch-roofed hut about a kilometre from his village of Kottapatti Anna Nagar in Dharmapuri. He found its raw beauty appealing and one day sat in front of it with his paint brushes and water colours to paint it. The scenes from his village and its surrounding areas are so deeply imprinted on the artist’s mind that whenever he sets out to paint, they flow on to the canvas. These works occupy pride of place at R. Achudan’s ongoing solo exhibition.
“These people are my models,” says Achudan, glancing at the dothi, sari, and half-sari-clad men and women who crowd his canvases. He wants to tell the story of rural India and nothing else. A villager not just at heart, but in the earnest way he speaks, Achudan describes how his journey into the world of art started. “I was always interested in art. As a kid, I would keep admiring the colourful pictures in my school books.”
Achudan enrolled at the College of Fine Arts in Chennai and completed his Masters in 2011. Before pursuing art as a full-time career, he worked as an art teacher in a school and did an interesting stint at the Mysore palace as a conservationist of the works of masters such as Raja Ravi Varma. It was an exciting job — Achudan got to restore original paintings by big names and protect them from climatic changes. “I sometimes painted small portions on the original that had cracked or chipped off,” he recalls. This way, Achudan felt he got to “connect” with artists who brought brush to canvas several decades ago.
Today, he wants people to experience something similar through his sketches of village life — connect with a community that lives close to nature. What better medium than water colours to express the vibrancy of such a lifestyle? A temple festival, complete with a regal chariot; a lone shepherd with his goats at his heel; a garlanded goat that will soon be sacrificed at the altar, standing by a petite girl in a half-sari… Achudan has rendered them beautifully with the translucent quality that only water colours can achieve.
The 34-year-old has also done a series with elephants and their mahouts.
In his initial days, Achudan got the privilege of hosting an exhibition at the Adhiyamaan Palace in Dharmapuri. “The district collector inaugurated it,” he says, his eyes bright. His works also decorate the walls of the memorial of Subramaniya Siva in Papparapatti. “I’ve traced important events from the life of the freedom fighter through the paintings,” explains Achudan.
Achudan has priced his works, which also include oil on canvas, from Rs. 1200 to Rs. 15,000 — he says that he has intentionally made his works affordable so that everyone with an eye for art can take one home. As an up and coming artist, he says this will work to his benefit too. In between taking art classes and helping his wife at home, Achudan spends most of his time painting. “It’s all I want to do,” he says. “I would like to be locked up in a room with all my brushes and colours and just paint.”
The art show is on at The Contemporary Window, 3/1A, First Avenue, Shastri Nagar, Adyar till July 23.
