Understanding an artist's show or works with her explaining each movement towards its completion is an education. So, when Anila Jacob explains her sculpture ‘Fishing', it beats any art theory class hands down.
“There, look at how the shadow falls on the wall and look at how the work looks with clearly defined lines…” That is an alternate way of looking at art, at her sculptures. She is quick to add, “M. V. Devan showed it to me. That is when it struck me.” ‘Ambience,' Anila Jacob's solo exhibition of sculptures is on at Durbar Hall Art Gallery.
Anila Jacob, for the uninitiated, can be safely called one of Kerala's foremost contemporary artists. She trained under the legendary K. C. S. Panicker at the Government School of Arts and Crafts, Chennai. Hers was the generation that had to work hard to prove their mettle. Along with Arnawaz Vasudev, T. K. Padmini and Rani Nanjappa, Anila Jacob comprised the strong presence of women in the Madras Art Movement. So where are all the women sculptors today? “It is hard work and the money is slow in coming…two deterrents. This is for those who are willing to work very hard.”
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Ten works are on show, and each tells a story. The sculptures (copper, bronze, brass and wood) are, to slog a cliché, a treat. The clarity of thought that has gone into the conception and execution of each work is an insight into how Anila works. “I sketch to get a basic image and then I improvise on that as I work.” Weight or unwieldiness is what one would associate with the media that she works with, but on translation they acquire that ethereal element… of lightness, fluidity and motion too. She, it appears, changes the very nature of the elements by making them malleable. How does she do that? She just laughs, “that depends on how I work on it.” Two sculptures, ‘Rescue' and ‘Floating Woman' best explain the idea. ‘Floating Woman' could be floating anywhere…and here we are talking about there are the metals and then is wood. The wooden carvings are inspired by African totem poles.
It is not just calm that Anila creates in her open air studio on the banks of the Periyar in Perumbavoor. Aggression, violence, jealousy… her works speak of those too. ‘Taming the Horse' comprises a pair of horses and a rider, it is hard to imagine that aggression and the violence born out of jealousy has been translated on what were essentially sheets of metals.
If a leitmotif is to be attributed to the works on show it is motion. All the works seem to be on a journey ‘Boatman', ‘Riding Lady' or ‘Discovery' or in motion or poised for motion such as ‘Angel On The Move', ‘Fishing', ‘Rescue' etc. “Motion is important. That is what I believe in….do things. The idea is that if you want to do something you should do it and not let someone stop you. It is this notion of being unstoppable.”
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This grandmother of six has no plans of stopping in the near future, “In my heart I am young but the body…but I will keep making sculptures.”
The show concludes on April 15.