T.R.Rajesh often translates his mindscape on canvas. In subtle hues and strong brush strokes he has touched upon vignettes of his life and the world around him, yet again. His fifth solo exhibition, ‘Square Roots’ is currently on at the Russian Cultural Centre, Vanross Junction. If his recent exhibition had water colour paintings, this one has 23 acrylic works. While 12 of them are acrylic on canvas, the rest are on acrylic sheets.
An art teacher with Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV) for the last 14 years (he now works at KV, Peroorkada), Rajesh calls himself an impulsive artiste. “When something affects me, I often capture that on the canvas,” he says. Like the Kamadhenu series, which is an introspection on women. “My wife is a working woman and there are many like her who are multi-taskers. But this quality of women is often exploited,” he explains.
Another work portrays his state of mind when he was posted in Orissa. “Getting uprooted from home was really painful and the pain and aches have been depicted in many works.” The work ‘Painted trees and the spotted tail’ was inspired by his visit to a college campus where he saw a huge tree with its painted trunk.
His works also reflects his concerns over the environment. For instance, the artist’s apprehension about depletion of water resources is expressed in a work – ‘How many clouds do you want’. “Drought looms large over us, something that we would have dismissed as impossible some 15 years ago,” he says. In another painting, he picturises man as an octopus, who is pulled or lured from different quarters and he has titled it as, ‘Man belongs to mankind, not to a nation or to a religion or to a race’. He also reflects upon the crooked paths chosen by man to reach his goals through a snake and ladder image.
A children’s author as well (he has written three children’s books), his book ‘Upside Down’ won the Kerala state award for children’s literature in 2010. An alumni of College of Fine Arts, Thiruvananthapuram, he is also the recipient of Balasahitya Puraskaram for best illustration (2012).
The exhibition of his paintings concludes on May 5. Time: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
