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Impulsive images

Powerful expressions of suppressed emotions

PHOTO: S. JAMES

IMPRESSIVE Sculpting a success story.

Imagine yourself in an alien land, where people, culture and language, everything appear strange. Life comes to a standstill with no help from anywhere. No one to share your pangs of pain and aspirations. Under such circumstance, any person would contemplate moving out. But not V. Satheesan, a painter-sculptor from Kerala.

"At some point of time, everybody faces such a situation. And life becomes meaningful once you endure and overcome such a difficult period in life. I found solace in art, one should never lose heart or hope," he says, reminiscing his turbulent life in Delhi, while pursuing Post-Graduation in fine arts.

And exactly this is the message he communicates through his sculpture titled `Shelter', which depicts a fatherly character embracing four children.

The terracotta figurine radiates positive energy and offers hope to any disturbed mind.

"After completing graduation in Thiruvananthapuram when I went to Delhi I only knew my mother tongue `Malayalam'. Braving all odds I survived only because I was able to give vent to my feelings through my art," quips Mr. Satheesan, who was in city recently to display his exhibits, `Frozen poetry,' which evoked keen interest among visitors.

When asked about the title of his exhibition, he said: "I mean nothing more than the direct connotation. These are images of my personal experiences captured as and when they struck me."

For a diminutive graduate from Kappil, a village 50 km from Thiruvananthapuram, the challenging task was to pursue studies under hostile conditions.

Especially, his sculpture `Gurudakshina', which has a fibreglass image of a thumb juxtaposed with undergraduate degree certificate, created a flutter among the visitors.

Suppressed feelings

Most of Satheesan's sculptures are expressions of suppressed feelings, which are well reflected through the dwarfish nature of his figurines.

He uses very strong and powerful images to put forth his ideas. The sculptor uses mix media for his poetic outbursts.

"Sculptors have come of age. Still sticking to the age-old practice of using stone and wood as media for sculpting is considered primitive. Now, people have started to use `found' materials for their works of art. Even a PVC pipe can become a medium. I use fibre glass a lot for it is easy for me to carry these images to the exhibition venues," says Mr. Satheesan, who works in Kendriya Vidyalaya, Thiruvananthapuram as a drawing teacher.

Of course, being an artist lend him a hand for he had the universal language to get across his message.

T. SARAVANAN

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