The globe in the age of “Humanisation”

Noted art critic Jayashree Venkatadurai looks at the works of K.Babu, a self trained artist hailing from Madurai, presented at Alliance Francaise,Chennai.

It is common to expect that a good artist would have studied in a professional school. But time and again it had been proved that it need not be true. One such exception is K.Babu. K. Babu is a self trained artist from Madurai whose exhibition was held in Alliance Francaise De Chennai until the 20th of this month. The exhibition show cased exemplary imagination in portraying and mimicking human conditions and the miniscule identity of human beings on the globe. His humor and creativity goes well with the pastels as he portrays creatures like frogs, fishes and bees as imposters of human beings. With subdued colours and simple linear vocabulary his diligent work succeeds in communicating the expressions made on the painterly surface.

The creatures are often clogged on to a pedestal either gazing at a globular structure or wandering in the presence of the globe. The movements of these creatures are restricted and brought in to a limited vocabulary since their awareness of the globe around them. The creatures resemble human beings primarily because they are portrayed with the human eyes. As they touch upon and search on to the surface of the globe - a spherical representation of the earth - they give us an impression that their survival is centered upon the survival of the world increasingly threatened by human activity.  

The two things that are striking about these works are the painterly treatment that is transparent as well as rich in portraying the self created motifs.  The choice of a non-conventional and fantasy like figurative, which forms the basis for his works, is remarkable. As we talk about the art scene in Tamil Nadu this artist is not alone in his stylization. Artists like M. Natesh and K.Muralidharan had already touched upon the fauvist narrative styles playing around with fantasies. Babu has managed to make his own fantasy world come alive.

Since I have been observing his work for the past one decade I would say Babu’s works are not ephemeral in nature. In spite of the changing art scenario that is moving more in to the modes of realism claiming it as “Post modern” (with little bit of pun here and there) this artist remains unchanged in his stylistic and formal endeavors.
 
K. Babu is from a group of artists emerged from Madurai with the name “Chithirakarargal”(The painters). The group had been active for more than almost two decades. M.G. Rafiq Ahmed, R.Loganathan (Logu) and K. Babu were the founding members of the group. Logu’s style was close to the Tantric paintings from where he seemed to be drawing his inspiration. Rafiq’s images are surreal assemblages collaged on to the surface of canvas or even miniature boxes. As a group of self trained artists these artists have borrowed from the cultural ambiance of the temple city-Madurai and myths and moods of the rituals and celebrations borrowed through it.