'Aniket Khupse - Memories', 9" x 12" , water colour on paper

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Watercolours Unlimited

Tanya Abraham visits ‘Ophelia’ a group show of watercolours by ten young contemporary artists at the Gallery OED, Kochi and reviews the works vis-à-vis the theme of the show.

At the recent show at OED Gallery, ‘Ophelia’ dips itself into the vastness and explores the concept it bears. Thirty two works in water colours by eight artists, the title offers the dreamy, free-flowing yet profound imagination that watercolour as a medium tends to create. Playing with texture is one thing, however, watercolour as a medium when allowed to carry upon itself the unique quality of natural exploration, finalizes a picture of unlimited concern. The final depiction very often depends on the controlled use of the medium, the limit to which it is allowed to discover for itself depending upon the artist. An artist’s artistic abilities appear evident in this mode of control. Artists in participation have thus proclaimed the varied use of this medium in multifarious ways, metaphors and iconic imagery often in portrayal.

Kavitha Balakrishnan uses colours to offer a pictorial description of paintings. Her ‘Just Relaxed In The Monsoon Country’, a young woman cross legged in the vast beauty of nature’s abundance. Serenity strengthens the ambience she has created, the warmth and lightness of watercolours that then takes upon boldness in colour and detail in the figures of the numerous men clad in colourful wraps, emotionless or in varied emotion: sullen, pained, anxious. Kavitha’s concept question’s the trapped existence behind the veil of freedom, men packaged by organized society as in her ‘Flagged On  A Sunny Day’, groups of men contained in sections for the organized disposal of mankind.

Vinu VV brings out the brilliance of the medium using a singular yellow that creates within itself the variation of the medium. The subjects chosen bear sullen shades of black and white, sharks in two, birds in dual, a single crow with an egg and in one where he symbolizes time through old fashioned clocks- a reminder of time in motion, the passage of life. Is time limited in the quest for truth, love and relationships, fragmented into a meaning less existence?

Piyali Gosh uses the strength of watercolour to offer a blend of the various colours in concern. Although she has used colours of little compliment, where her choice is of the need to create the vibrancy that arises of their merge to depict motion, the opportunity to create texture from watercolours through the use of external material is quite evident. It provides an almost acrylic effect where from an abstract illusion, it moves to the subject of a figure.

 Kedar Dhondu’s ‘Path of Slowness’ is a pure crystallization of his concept and belief. There is little evidence of the versatility of watercolour as a medium in this work, instead a be-laboured work of a horse chained to an iron anchor, the latter half of the animal depicted as a wooden rocking horse. He moves into other spheres of using this medium as well, like ‘Trawled Kingfisher’ where he magnifies development, a fish tied down by anchors in the mouth of a kingfisher, the trodden, pained side of development in colours of grey and brown that beautifully takes upon the development of watercolour in its own space.
Aniket takes the medium onto a greater level, he clearly tells of the pliability and flexibility that can come from it. Yet, its controlled usage highlights the matter in concern, man in his natural, pure self: figures, paint brushes in a cup as against the drama of a dark green in ‘A Page From My Diary’ with hidden figures of mechanized, violent, persevering men, bullets and a bulls-eye board. He follows a similar treatment in his other works like ‘Memories’. Aniket uses layers of colours that create a depth to his work, where a dimension emerges from the use of shapes- horizontal lines and spirals for example, that often takes the form of a subject in display such as a palm tree.

Anupam Singh’s paintings are a bit direct in its thematic orientation. Unlike Aniket’s it does not produce a distinct treatment but watercolours play for what it is. His theme revolves around the negativism from development, a construction device that holds a man’s face and then the back of a horse, both which develop from within the device. So also in ‘Green Isolation’, he paints green growth beneath a shed, the rest in colours of ochre and brown that creates the necessary mood. Satheesh   Kumar K’s paintings symbolic of his conviction. Connectivity is highlighted where nature connects to man to change to creation. And lastly, Rajib Pradip Chowdhury’s five paintings bring out the brilliance of the medium opting for more vibrant choice of colours. From a version of Ophelia, the character titled, in ‘Eternal Sleep’ he moves to a luring abstract mode of it. His paintings traverse from varied concepts [a woman’s feet in high heels, a discarded bouquet of roses] to the play of light and shadow in ‘Garden Of Thorn’, a pained face of a young girl, darkened by the growth of thorns. Versatile creations that speak of women.

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