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Love of landscapes

The moods of the south Indian landscape spurred Ramaa Narayanan to express them in pictorial form

INSPIRED BY NATURE A work by Ramaa Narayanan

Ramaa Narayanan, a professor of art and its histories, has been living and breathing art for the past few decades. An alumnus of the Department of Fine Arts, Stella Maris College, she has made her contribution to art education through her dedicated tutelage of numerous students through the very same portals. While operating within the hallowed environs of academia, she has also seen fit to make sporadic journeys into art practice. These journeys into art coupled with her passion for travel have taken her on many routes.

In this exhibition, the major thrust of her collective oeuvre is landscape painting, which also includes early works rendered as studies. Inspired by her wanderlust, Ramaa has chosen to explore the landscapes that have stayed with her after she has bodily passed through them. "As I travelled through South India, the thrill of being `enveloped' by Nature and the experience of the elements and moods of the south Indian landscape spurred me to express them in pictorial form and `Dakshina' was the result."

Confined to memory, which typically plays with details, altering, simplifying and analysing, the landscapes that emerge are succinct phrases of the original. Encompassing frequent changes in media, her paintings capture the evolutionary process of her mind's eye, moving from a naturalistic bent towards abstraction.

The tentative strokes of the initial years have grown bolder with time, making the recent paintings almost evocative of colour-field abstraction. The loosening of the carefully placed strokes of yesteryear articulates the progression of the artist's vision. The surfaces have grown larger as the artist makes the shift towards freedom from confining structure.

While moving towards abstraction, Ramaa's leanings toward formalism are evident, particularly in the recent `Dakshina' series.

Even as the representational elements are fairly intelligible by their trying to encapsulate the `form' through the mediation of a cerebral process, the structure itself slowly and surely dissolves, trying to shake off its mantle of identity as `landscape'.

It is only the suggestive titles such as `Midsummer at Chengalpattu' and `Vyarkkadu' that hint at the landscape embedded within the fields of colour.

Still-life paintings

Also forming part of the display are her still-life paintings, which include experiments with varied media such as pen and ink, print and watercolours. Interesting works include a series where the artist has toyed with inverse perspective and `kitschy' colouration. Her penchant for juxtaposing complementary colours such as orange and blue, which intensify one another, is a recurring trend, adding brilliance and balance to the colour palette.

The show is on till July 29, at Lakshana Museum of Aarts, 8, Judge Jambulingam Street, Mylapore.

SWAPNA SATHISH

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