A painter’s take on Aadu Jeevitham

The novel Aadu Jeevitham by Benyamin has been an eye opener to many. For dentist P.K. Bindiya, it has been the inspiration for her latest series of paintings.

An exhibition of 20 paintings by Bindiya titled Aadu Jeevitham (Life of a goat) began at the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi Art Gallery in Kozhikode on Saturday.

Since childhood

Bindiya has been interested in art since childhood but never underwent formal training until two years ago.

After a short course in painting, she started doing random works but an exhibition was never on her mind.

Book

However, reading Aadu Jeevitham , which won many an award for the realistic portrayal of the animalistic life of an expatriate in the Middle East, changed her life. She realised that many parts of the text haunted her dreams as well as her creativity. “It was after I completed two or three paintings, based on my understanding of the various scenes, that I started contemplating about exhibiting them. So I did a series on it,” Dr.Bindiya said.

Besides the paintings, the centre of attraction at the exhibition is an installation of a goat skeleton in the backdrop of a desert. “A real human skeleton has been used for the body. The head of a goat was purchased and treated to remove the flesh. Later, the skull was attached to the body of the human skeleton,” she said. The exhibition was inaugurated by artists Kabitha Mukhopadhyaya and K.Prabhakaran.

The exhibition will conclude on January 28.