The chance meeting of two artists from different continents at the Mumbai airport brought them all the way here to the city to showcase their works.
The art exhibition ‘Pigments on the Plane exhibition - Paris to Pondicherry,’ displaying 36 paintings of Chennai-based artist Gurunathan Govindan and another artist Mariel Manuel is being held at Artbeat Gallery in Puducherry.
Mr. Govindan, 36, who believes in art being an expression of feeling, met 31-year-old artist Mariel Manuel from France at Mumbai airport.
Travelling on a Chennai-bound flight, they got acquainted and shared their passion for art. When Mr. Gurunathan invited her to his art studio to see his works, Ms. Manuel was more than willing to visit.
After graduating from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Ms. Manuel joined theBalenciaga design studio and worked for three years, mostly with textile research, experimenting volume and ideas as well as designing leather pieces.
Expression of feelings
Talking about his works, which are completely inclined towards abstraction, Mr. Gurunathan says that though he started off just like every other artist painting portraits and landscapes, over a period of time he believed in expressing more than recreating. “I learnt the basic skills of drawing in school. I decided to pursue art as it came to me naturally. We learnt anatomy drawings, portraits, model study and I specialised in portrait. As I ploughed through the library, I learnt about different artists from all over the world,” he said.
Mr. Gurunathan added, “As I began to explore, I realised that I did not want to just tell stories through my art. I wanted to express through colours what I felt when I stood before a vast landscape or sea. I wanted my work to reflect that feeling of comfort and bring out the texture, forms and colours.”
