Siji R Krishnan - ‘My Papa’, 30” x 36”, Mix media on paper pasted on canvas

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Mysteries of Mind

Gallery OED, Kochi recently presented a group show of four artists titled ‘Mysteries: Pictures of Mystical Visions’. Jankiraman reviews the show.

‘Mysteries: Pictures of Mystical Vision’, a group show of four artists namely Anjaneyulu, Lochan Upadhyay, Reji Arackal and Siji Krishnan at the Gallery OED, Kochi is interesting in many counts. The show as a whole is an attempt to reveal the mysterious aspects embedded in the ordinary lives of human beings. The incidents that look quite mundane in our daily lives reveal their inner truths, mysteries and wonders, when perceived through the eyes of creativity. It is not important what we see, but how we see, the participating artists seem to say through their works.

Anjaneyulu, a Hyderabad based artist who employs a visual structure that draws its energy from the skill demanding hyper realist language, paints tools and utensils that have been obliterated from the daily use. For the artist, these tools and objected painted with eye-fooling realism, are the mysterious and missing links of a culture, which is going through a transition. Changing technology and culture bring forth new tools and utensils. This introduction pushes many other objects and utensils out of daily use. Anjaneyulu attributes these objects with metaphorical meanings in order to remind the viewer of the mysteries of these missing links.

Lochan Upadhyay’s box series simulate the carry bags that have become an unavoidable part of the consumerist culture. These wooden boxes painted over with the faint image of a shirt almost function like mirrors that reflect all what is going on in our society. They reflect urban and rural spaces. The multiple layers Lochan creates on his pictorial surface show how our personalities are defined by what we consume. Lochan’s critique stands out as the very design of his works deliberately negate the kind of sophistication that a buyer ‘would’ like to have in what he buys.

Reji Arackal’s works present a surreal world, where the beings bloat into gigantic forms. They are overtly voluptuous and sexual almost to the point of revulsion. The male and female seen in domestic conjugal positions seem to consume each other without compassion or love. They look awkward with their ballooning bodies, though they pretend confidence. Reji seems to point out how in our domestic lives, even without our own knowledge we turn into ogres and ogresses.

Siji Krishnan is the catch of this show. In her unassuming canvases, she reveals a private world of any girl from a small town. Her protagonists are all girls in their adolescence. In one of the paintings Siji shows a small girl suckling at her father’s breast. In another one, she paints a dark girl sitting in a toilet (a very private moment that no woman painter in India has ever tried to portray). But she is not an ordinary girl. In the privacy of this self-purging moment, she grows wings like an angel. Siji, in my view is one of the best amongst the emerging woman artists in Indian contemporary art.