There’s a relaxed sense of camaraderie in the gallery. Four of Chennai’s senior artists are overseeing the setting up of their group show at Artworld (as part of Art Chennai), and you can see why they’ve chosen to exhibit together as they stand about chatting, having a chai, and amiably taking turns talking to me.
“As a group, we just gel together,” says sculptor S. Nandagopal. “We did a show in Bangalore, and it worked well, so we decided to get together again. We’re planning to do one in Delhi next.”
Their personalities are as different as their signature styles, and that, says K. Muralidharan, is why the group has value. “Our work is distinctive, but there’s a common thread running through it all.”
In this exhibition, a definite common thread is the size of the works; each artist has contributed an eye-catching large-scale work, six, seven or nine feet across (Nandagopal’s ‘The Silver Pilgrimage’ is so large, it needed a separate alcove outside), accompanied by other smaller, more delicate works.
The other commonality is in content, but it’s subtle, spinning a gossamer fine web of connections across the gallery space. In his large, dark grey-black, distressed canvases (highlighted gorgeously with cobalt blue varnish), C. Douglas continues to delve deeper into the tortured world of the ‘Blind Poet and the Butterflies’, a world full of poetry, metaphor and existential angst. Words from Tagore’s ‘Fireflies’ flit across the canvas, as a blind poet gropes in vain across his library and the all-seeing butterflies emerge from their chrysalis…
“My theories are gaining clarity, and they’re leading me to greater faith,” he says. Those theories are strongly influenced by the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke and the writings of French theorist Maurice Blanchot, ruminations on “faith, poetry and art, that which can save us”, of man’s blindness and inability to just believe, and the simple wisdom of animals like the fluttering butterfly.
Animals take centre stage in the effervescent works of Muralidharan, of course, now more than ever. His treatment of them is as filled with light as Douglas’ are filled with shadows. In these brightly coloured abstract landscapes, he foregrounds the noble temple elephants, the graceful peacocks, and forest birds and animals, creating a fantastical world that combines Nature, mythology and the rustic effortlessly.
“I’ve begun to focus exclusively on landscapes, animals and birds,” he says. “The process of creation of these large works was entirely spontaneous, unfolding on the canvas like a celebration.”
As with Douglas, texture has always played an important part in Muralidharan’s works, and that effect is heightened in this collection, where he uses mixed media — paper, cloth — to create a textile-like feel, the smaller pieces textured like embroidery or appliqué.
Mythological figures, animals... all these elements find echoes in Nandagopal’s copper-brass sculptures. In the massive seven foot by seven foot ‘The Silver Pilgrimage’ (named after the novel by the late Chief Justice of Madras M. Ananthanarayanan), an ascetic completes his spiritual journey surrounded by animals and by Nature, the whole graceful work coated in gleaming, enigmatic silver.
“It took me four months to finish, and my hands are filled with burns from the silver cyanide!” he laughs. “Silver-coating on copper-brass is a time-consuming process that’s not done much nowadays.”
The large-scale work comes on the heels of his massive 25-foot sculpture done for the Hyatt, and as much as he enjoyed the sense of space these works afforded him, it was a pleasure, he says, to return to small pieces, “which feel within your control”. The smaller brass sculptures in this collection are delightful, glowing in jewel tones of blue, green and red enamel (a Hanuman statue alone has eight different shades of green).
The works of Rm. Palaniappan have become increasingly spare, as he too, like Douglas and Muralidharan continues to fine-tune his philosophy and zero in on the essential. In his case, that is the line in its purest form, the line as a sculpture, as an installation, exploring its movement in a confined space.
In this collection, he’s experimented with this concept in a nine foot triptych, a celebration of lines in gold. “I’ve made it minimalistic, stripped down purely to the line,” he says. “The next step will be to bring in sound, and a line’s movement to sound into the installation.”
Forty, fifty years of being artists and the evolution continues… as Nandagopal puts it, “The process of developing your concepts and bringing them to fruition is not simple. It’s a long, lonely road.”
This exhibition is one more step ahead for these four Madras Movement stalwarts. A rare treat.
The exhibition is on until February 21.
