An ongoing extensive exhibition of eminent painter and muralist late KG Subramanyan’s works showcases a panoramic display of intricate ornamentation, rooted into our tribal, folk and indigenous as well as traditional court painting and modern art. Titled “Women Seen And Remembered”, it is mounted at Capital’s Triveni Kala Sangam’s three galleries by the Art Heritage and the Seagull Foundation for the Arts,
Even at the ripe old age of 92 when he breathed his last in 2016, Subramanyan’s canvas exuded a felicity and dexterity with colours. The grip on his brush, his quaintness in composition, size and palette — everything reflects a vivid vivaciousness and a lust for life.
Evolution of the women
Arranged chronologically, Subramanyan’s works in the exhibition move from the slumped, domesticated body of the women of 1950s to reveal how she transforms into a self-aware coquette in 1970s, presenting herself in her full blown and stark sensuality. Even some of his incomplete, abstract renditions of the woman’s body, show a slow, subtle change in the form, visible to the enthralling spellbound viewers as they walk through the gallery.
Some find his women heavily influenced by mythology, legends and folklore, as the artist’s search for a female divine form in his work.
Each section of artworks is supplemented by the poems written by the artist on women, that are spread throughout the exhibition, complementing a full picture of the women in the viewer’s mind. Subramanyan’s over 300 drawings and murals on women explore a female body with the self- assertive liberation and fancy. It’s just like ‘Women Women on the wall, who is the most of enigmatic of them all’, the artist has captured a myriad moods of women. Sadness, innocence, motherly, childlike, haunting, quiet, buoyant, coquettish, mermaids, bird-like, goat-like, witty, mischievous, grave, domestic, evocative, provocative, sensual, mythical, playfulness, enchanting and enigmatic — all in his frenzied lines and splotches of bright eye-catching colours that leave the strongest impression on the viewers.
A fabulist by nature
In a conversation with the noted art historian R.Siva Kumar in 2014, the artist had said, “I am by nature a fabulist. I transform images, change their character, make them float, fly, perform, tell a visual story. To that extent, my pictures are playful and spontaneous.” His sketches of Durga, Saraswati and other goddesses and that of ‘mtsya’ (mermaids) are best examples of pictorial fables. Subramanyan’s another striking area is painting the woman with an animal and the animal often appears to be male. His teasing imageries with fluidity of calligraphic brush lines are a real delight.
His coloured and black-and-white drawings with brush, pen ballpoint and marker pens with a variety of mediums as ink, watercolour gouche and crayon bear witness to his mastery over a multiplicity of mediums.
Unlike the tall and robust women of MF Hussain and asexual women of Tyeb Mehta, Subramanyan’s way of depicting a woman is certainly distinctive. Art historian R.Siva Kumar, who has closely followed Subramanyan’s oeuvre of artworks through the decades, says that his images of women are quirky and they spring from his mind, each built from a flurry of gestural marks, each enlivened by a spark of animation and together buzzing like a hive.”
His lines are strong, flowing or staccato, complexly cross-hatched, boldly defining the female body.
And what a curatorial splendour! Over 300 artworks with the blown-up-photographs of the artist, installed on the walls, especially painted brightly with monochromatic and diagonal fields of colour, the exhibition mounted wonderfully in marvellous dramatic designs executed by the director of Art Heritage Amal Allana is a great visual treat.
(The exhibition is on view till September 9 at Triveni Kala Sangam, Mandi House, New Delhi)
