Traversing a Changing Landscape, Narendranath Palala’s latest exhibition is a result of years of painting. “I don’t bring my paintings out unless there is an exhibition. My paintings are like my children. These landscapes, I’ve been painting over the years,” he says. The paintings now on display at Iconart Gallery, takes the viewer through wilderness.
The artist’s brush brings alive thick vegetation, flora and the rugged landscape of forests at different times of the day — dawn, dusk and moonlit nights in different seasons. “As children, we have travelled intensively within the forest cover of Telangana and Andhra regions, especially the Adilabad forests,” Narendranath recounts. He used to instantly sketch watercolours while in the wilderness, capturing the essence of the place and later do a full-fledged painting.
The oil on canvas works have a surreal quality to them, with some of the paintings resembling a soft focus photograph. “I don’t work on a white canvas. The canvas is treated for at least 10 days and then I use a mix of oils, over several layers, to arrive at the final opacity required. It’s a technique practiced and perfected over time,” he says, reluctant to share more details.
His technique of using oils, he says, varies from one work to another. “Sometimes, looking back, I cannot tell which technique was used in which painting. Everything about forests fascinates me,” he says.
Every tree in the painting seems to have a story to narrate and every settlement, an element of mystery.
The exhibition is on at Iconart Gallery till September 17.
