HYDERABAD: Titled ‘A Retrospective Carnival’ a limited edition Giclee print exhibition, the second edition of The Art Walk by Park Hyatt features master painter Suryaprakash. While referring to the exhibition, he says, “It is not possible to show my whole work of five decades and more. In the last few years, so many young artists have come up and it is a good idea to show my works to some youngsters who were not even born when I started to paint.” When we point out his art will be an inspiration for the young generation, he retorts, “I am not so prolific. There have been no great successes or great failures in life and I have been steadily working all these years. I just want youngsters to have a look. They don’t need to be inspired by my works. They have to go by their own vision and stand on their own feet,” he says.
The veteran artist has slowed down in recent years. “This is because of my technical efforts towards painting; I have not been able paint a lot in terms of quantity. Also, the price of my works has gone up and won’t be able to reach everyone. Digital prints are one way to reach.”
Through its 44 digital prints, the exhibition traces the evolution of Satyaprakash’s oeuvre from the early decades to the recent times.
Art lovers can walk across the wall to see his power of expression through abstracts and the colourful wild landscapes. The abstract world takes art lovers back to the 70s when a young Suryaprakash was often found at dumping yards.
“Those days I used to go to the scrap yards where people dumped their auto scrap. There are big dumping yards in Hyderabad and I used to photograph and spend a lot of time there. Basically, this is my material to visualise and paint and I am fond of abstract works. In the conventional sense, I have never painted portraits or the human forms,” he reminisces.
The scrap lines and patterns evolved, lines fused and a human or an animal form surfaced at a later stage.
“Things began to change and I have started humanising those forms. I might have done 300 such works in those 10 years. I started humanising them and thought of them as forms that we have within our body or the animal body. These sorts of forms and elements are represented in a painting. There is no particular meaning attached to them,” he explains.”
Images of the wild landscape submerged in oranges, spring hues of yellow, tinted ochres and moss green are spectacular. As one refers to his compelling series on the wild landscapes, the artist jokes, “I have become old and the palette has become colourful. I have been using all kinds of colours depending on what I have to work and what I see in the outside world.”
The most compelling and poignant series is his works on the dried leaves. Interestingly, it was also one of his long, popular works.
“After exhausting myself from the auto scrap I moved to material that is dead. I only call them leaves but these are actually dead leaves. There is no life after their vanity has dried under the tree. There is a different kind of formation. I tried to paint folding it with one hand trying to be close. They are deformed material otherwise leaves are flat in texture. Later, I also gave some background like water and some Hyderabadi rocky structure and land,” he observes
The artist reflects on his journey. “I am not really very proud of this. This is what I have been doing, and what I will do better as an individual and continue doing it. There are poets, writers, and performers and everyone’s approach is looking towards the life; the goals are different. My approach and goal is to be on a daily basis with my art. I don’t know how much I have been able to add more. Currently I am painting 4 ft /3ft canvas. There are elements of water and greenery and I show the depth in them. There is no hard and fast rule. What I want is a good painting which I will be happy with.”
