Mumbai is karmabhoomi for artist Riyas Komu. He has lived there for nearly two decades, grown and come of age in the Maximum City but it is Kerala where his roots remain deeply entrenched.
“Mumbai gave me a lot of love, it gave me the courage to grow in difficult circumstances but my foundation is from Kerala. My political belief, my attitude all stem from here. I come here often and always think of Kerala as a subject and make works around it.”
For an artist who is acclaimed internationally, whose works are in private collections of international collectors and exhibited in museums across the world, Riyas' small town upbringing has played a vital role in his success.
His aesthetic sensibilities grew, watching a “collective system” deliver better than the many variations he saw in the outside world later. His expression took shape from the changing political scene, where the proletariat found its voice. Riyas is one among India's top, young, contemporary artists. His is a very intense and strong voice that just does not let go the viewer.
What makes Riyas' works conceptually so strong? “Relevant content is king in art. I don't want to be just an object maker,” he says politely his deep-set eyes convincingly telling you that he is very involved with his ideology, which is a fine balance of his three identities- regional, religious and political.
The first of course is shaped by his childhood days in Thrissur where he was found always sitting with the tailor and designing clothes. “I wanted to become a textile designer”, he says but that was something that perhaps disappointed his father who had dreams of his son becoming a doctor. But design and dabbling in it as a youngster were his preoccupation. Alongside he was writing and drawing posters for his father's political campaigns. “I covered several election campaigns for my father, M.M. Komu when he was an independent candidate for assembly elections.” With an uncle who was a panchayat president for 35 years and a family of seven brothers and two sisters Riyas grew up in a politically active family. His father, as the president of a matchbox factory association, was seen by him as one who was empathetic to the working class. And so was shaped Riyas' socio-political thoughts, which find strong expression in his work. An early political work, ‘He Used To Believe That EMS Planted Coconut Tree in Kerala,' satirises the blind belief the system has in politicians.
It was at JJ School of Arts, Mumbai, that he did his BFA and MFA. Riyas feels that the '92 riots changed his thinking completely. “You start being identified by your religion,” he said and post '92 the riots begin to appear as a symbol in his work.
Affected as he was, Riyas says that until then he had always visualised the colour of his death to be green…something peaceful. But the violence in Mumbai changed it to hues of red.
Death, a metaphor
The bomb blasts in Mumbai were to further compound his cynicism. “It was like being in a war zone,” he recalls. Death became a metaphor in his works. In a one-month residency in Karachi along with international artists, he made the incisive Karachi Series photographs, ‘Immortal Deathscapes', where he even quotes Tariq Ali and Afghan poets making a profound political statement on the American dominance in Pakistan and its Afghanistan-like future.
This was followed by his ‘Systematic Citizen Series' where Riyas addresses the issues faced by migrants, especially the migrant labourers in Mumbai. Football, another Kerala leitmotif had the artist express his concepts through works featuring players and the game.
In ‘Left Leg Series' he paid tribute to the Iraqi team that practised in exile and won against Saudi Arabia in Asia Cup. The work was showcased at Venice Biennale in 2008. It conveyed his protest against American occupation in Iraq and depicted how football became the Iraqis salvation.. A lasting image he has of a football field in Iraq, as picturised by a war correspondent friend, is of the field strewn with dead bodies and once cleared it has kids back on it, playing ball.
Football
“It is a working class game; it's a healer,” says Riyas and plays the game daily at a local ground in Mumbai. Football is the great equaliser and to him football clubs present a forum for collective protest. “Indian football is marginalised. The game is always played for some kind of salvation…” His other football related works are ‘Mark Him' (First), ‘Mark Him' (Second) and ‘Subrata to Caesar', made on the occasion of the World Cup 2010.
From regional, religious to political Riyas traverses the three areas of thought with maturity and ease, never compromising on the aesthetics. His works in mixed media range from working in wood, concrete, video, photographs, prints, textile and automotive parts. His installations are large and his studio, an extension of an automobile garage in Mumbai has 20 or more carpenters, mostly from Kerala working with him. He recruits craftsmen locally from the slums, something where his ideology finds practice.
In ‘Cult of the Dead and Memory Loss', a dramatic work, which was shown in Kochi , a fairly large installation of a community leader on the massage table, in a wooden cage with exquisite carvings. Riyas speaks about the detoxification of a cult. “Kerala de-toxifies…it heals,” he says and lavishes praise on Kerala as a cosmopolitan State. Last 20 years of living outside has given him a better perspective. He believes that Kerala offers people a magical experience, draws them in a trance….The leaders of the State he feels have done well. “Our leaders understand the system better and they have maintained the State well. Though I have several arguments I feel they are the best bet.”
Political statement
In a larger context he does not spare the political class totally. In his latest work in progress, which is a sound installation too, he has used the ‘shirodhara' with engine oil as a metaphor.
“I am addressing a larger issue here by using detoxification as an idea that I derive from the land I was born in…”
In an ambitious project that he is currently working on for a show in May at Pompidou Centre, Paris, he deals with multi-cultural history of France through football.
And so you ask the intellectual, intense artist, if he will ever, away from the cut and thrust of day-to-day realities, paint a landscape, a flower or Kerala's beautiful scenery and he says with a faint smile, “Why not, I might just do so.” That will indeed be a new chapter in Riyas' complex, vibrant oeuvre.
