A painting used to be simple — paint applied to a flat surface. And while contemporary painters do continue this tradition, they also push its borders by not just sticking to traditional paints. Everyone wants to be different.
And being different is S. Bhagavathy Radhakrishnan. She opted to use coffee as her medium to express her thoughts.
A self-taught artist, Bhagavathy has been experimenting with coffee for a couple of years now. “I saw an artiste doing it on the Internet and was inspired,” says Bhagavathy.
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Instant coffee is dissolved in water to create the paint. Water is added to get the various tonal gradation. The colours range from monotonic shades of light sepia to dark chocolate brown. These different shades of coffee give the paintings a rich, earthy feel to it.
“The art is time consuming as the canvas has to be given a special coating before one starts to paint. The paintings are left to dry well upon completion and varnish and a glass frame help preserve the canvas.”
Bhagavathy has always been into art, even as a child. Her interest was further encouraged by her husband, S. Radhakrishnan, who is an artist. “He helped me hone my skills.”
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A former teacher at Carmel School, Bhagavathy left her job six years ago to pursue her love for art. “I held an exhibition of my paintings last year and the coffee paintings were a huge hit. I plan to hold an exhibition of just coffee paintings during Onam, 2015.”
Bhagavathy will be exhibiting her works at an exhibition-cum-sale at Women’s Club, Kowdiar.
There are 15 coffee paintings, some hand-painted saris, some mural inspired paintings and some oil paintings.