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Colours of water

The paintings on exhibit are a pictorial tribute to water

Ajith AKG.

Water, the elixir of life, is on display in its myriad manifestations at the Water series exhibition by Ajith AKG at Wallframes art gallery at Kacheripady. Right from a well-rounded dewdrop droplet to limitless placid oceans, the artist has portrayed this nourishing and sustaining element in its various moods. Points out Ajith, "two-thirds of earth is water and still we continue to call it a solid mass. That's why in my paintings you will see water gaining its right prominence over land. By its very nature being colourless, odourless and shapeless, it still so obediently takes the shape, space and milieu that it is set in." So in the hands of an artist it's a theme pliable enough to explore. And seeking to capture its liquid fluorescence through the use of incandescent white spaces whose stark brilliance is offset against the use of duller shades of black-grey and smudged sky-blue or on the other canvasses with rich shades of emerald hues and azure blues. Says Ajith, "I have based my water colours on transparency and hence you will see a lot of deliberate white spaces. I haven't used paint on it. It is raw white paper spaces. What I found intriguing and difficult about it was how to get continuity and consistency into my stroke play without staining the pristine spaces."

Doctor vs artist

DOCTOR'S PRECISION Fine brush strokes.

A medico by profession and an artist by passion, 32-year-old Ajith wasn't satisfied with just wielding the scalpel, he needed to put brush to paper and express the artist in him. Says Ajith, "As a doctor, I am just another drop in the ocean. Even if I don't practice, no one is going to notice or care. There are other doctors to heal. But an artist, even an average one can claim that his work is exclusive, patented. It helps me create a personal identity wherein I can etch out my personal experiences and impressions." His paintings have abstract imagery akin to body cells and a crisscross of veins and arteries expressing his medical affiliations. But going ahead in his quest for stamping a distinct identity he has completed a water colour work titled `Beyond' that he claims is the world's largest water colour art work on paper done by a single artist. Its size measures about 196 x 76 cm on a single handmade paper. "Not many undertake a work of such magnitude as it difficult to get the right spread of consistency in the brushstrokes," says Ajith. For the doc his panoramic paintings with minimal brushstrokes depicting coastal life are throbbing with natural and manual activity, his stills have a nerve centre of their own. Three of his paintings depict maps of Kochi, Trivandrum and Bombay, metros that have been influenced by the waves of tides and times. And other set of watercolors show the inflow and outflow of tributaries and estuaries. But the breathtakingly beautiful ones where water gushes out at you like his take on a caved waterfall. Also captivating are his works where dewdrops balance precariously for that instant against green lotus leafed backgrounds. Adds Ajith, "I am taken in by the peculiarity of lotus leaves. They have a heart shaped centre with stemmed beams radiating outwards like the life giving sun."

Other than conducting solo exhibitions, Ajith also conducts various workshops and demonstrations. He will be conducting a workshop at Wallframes gallery tomorrow.

RAKHEE MOHAN

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