Akkitham Naryanan
Akkitham |
(Excerpts from a catalogue article written by JohnyML for Art Alive Gallery, New Delhi)
In his dearly protected seclusion Akkitham Narayanan creates paintings. His creations are abstract in character, reflecting a deeper understanding of the nature and its varied colours and moods. Perhaps, for any artist who has been working diligently on the same philosophy and style for nearly three and half decades, the language that he uses become a second nature. Akkitham’s paintings appear to be effortlessly done with a sense of musical rhythm. The forms and colours that come repeatedly in his works remind the viewer of the chanting of a hymn, reverberating with the essence of life spirit. Akkitham would readily agree with these observations for he does not dispute the fact that his works are ‘abstractions’ and they do have a lot to do with the memories of a ritual-ridden life that included the chanting of Vedic hymns.
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When Akkitham Narayanan entered the field of art as a student in Madras College of Art, under the efficient tutelage of the noted painter K.C.S.Panicker during 1960s, Indian art scene was going through a period of chaos. Modernism had already become a very strong presence and Expressionism was the guiding philosophy and language for many of the artists. Thick contours and violent strokes that defined Expressionism facilitated the artists to deal with their existential angst. The euphoria generated out of the nation building projects of the post-independent was fizzling out slowly that there was an urgent need for finding a new artistic language to express the changing scenario.
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Developing on the Neo-Tantric language initiated by K.C.S.Panicker seemed to be a natural choice for Akkitham Naryanan. Elaborating a bit on his personal history at this stage is necessary for understanding his art further. Akkitham Narayanan was born in Akithethu Mana, a traditional Brahmin family that was involved in conducting Vedic rituals. The elders in the Mana had conducted more than ten Yagas (mega rituals). Akkitham Narayanan’s childhood was mostly spent in ritualistic education. He remembers that each of his action was a choreographed ritual towards the fulfillment of a greater cause. He received a ritualistic and religious education till the age of eleven for attending an English school was considered to be a sin in those days! In his ritualistically choreographed and intellectually troubled boyhood days taught him to look at things in a different way. He found his elder brother and the famous poet Akkitham Achuthan Namboothiri enthralling the intellectual scenario of Kerala with his powerful poems. He found a warrior of revolution and a protector of tradition in his brother. The polarities in life and ideology had made the young Akkitham to think about them deeply. When he joined the art college in Madras, he was a skeptic, still caught in the web of a ritualistic past and an unquenchable thirst for breaking free from all what had been binding.
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Creative experiments that spread across almost four decades have refined the visual linguistics of Akkitham Naryanan considerably. Despite the conscious blocking of visual narratives from within the frame, a closer look at Akkitham’s works reveals that they are geometrical constructions, rather than ‘formless’ abstractions. One could easily approach the works from a ritualistic point of view for they remind the viewer of Vedic and Tantric ritualistic elements. At the same time one could take off from there and could generate a counter-narrative to view them in a new light. Akkitham himself has said once that his works are inspired by traditional Kerala architecture. His colours come from the mural paintings that had inspired the artist in him during his childhood days.
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Calling the paintings of Akkitham as ‘Geometrical Abstractions’ or ‘Neo-Tantric Paintings’ may help the onlooker to understand the apparent formal values present in them. However, these paintings have something more to offer than mere formal values. Akkitham’s works evoke the sense of a threshold; a way that opens towards and closes from various possibilities. The metaphysical and spiritual interpretations can be taken along till they merge with a purely non-religious and aesthetical plane. Similarly, the formal interpretations could collapse into the metaphorical and metaphysical realm. Akkitham Narayanan does not dispel both these possibilities. He says, “I would like to move from here and do something totally different, where formal, aesthetical and spiritual values can merge into one.” Akkitham believes that his works function against the fatal destiny and art, whether it is figurative or abstract, for him, is ‘timeless, eternal and anti-destiny.’ To borrow the words of M.V.Devan, Akkitham’s works are “all abstract pictures where space contains time and time contains space in perfect unison.”
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