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Six Clowns and an Island

K.Raghunathan, a sculptor with an ultimate sense of humor and pack of sensual and satirical stories about local lives has been working towards his solo show in Mumbai for the last two years. Renu Ramanath visits him at the Kakkathuruthu Island where he resides and works far away from the maddening crowd, and features his works.

K. Raghunadhan

K. Raghunadhan is a story-teller. Like all master story tellers, he takes pleasure in weaving his warps and wefts in a way hardly any one has done before. And in a way hardly anyone would expect.  The stories he tells are vividly detailed, with all those meticulously worked out details being assembled so as to create the most incongruous, yet fascinating effect.

Throughout his life, Raghunadhan has been telling stories.  During his long drawn-out sabbatical that lasted almost two decades, he had kept on telling stories, molding vivid images of even the most mundane realities with his words. People listened to him in rapt attention. He had an audience, always.

Now, giving final touches to the works for his solo exhibition of sculptures, ‘About Six Clowns and An Island,’  coming up in Mumbai in October, Raghunadhan looks pleased with his latest batch of stories – six free-standing sculptures (the ‘clowns’) and one relief, all in painted fiberglass.  The show, which will be presented by Bombay Art Gallery at the Jahangir Nicholson Gallery of NCPA, is his first solo in Mumbai. His first ever solo was held in Kashi Art Gallery, Kochi in 2006.

Raghunadhan’s works can be said to be drawing energy directly from the tradition of the great satirists of his home-state.  Kerala has a rich tradition of satire, dating back to the classical art form of Chakyarkoothu and the 18th century poet-performer Kalakkathu Kunchan Nambiar. The tradition continued through the early 20th century satirist Sanjayan (M.R.Nair) and V.K.N. (Vadakke Koottala Narayanan Nair).  It flourished with the array of illustrious cartoonists from Kerala who took Indian journalistic and political scenario by storm, led by Shankar, the father of Indian political cartooning. 

Humour lingers over the sculptures of Raghunadhan like a glossy patina, subtly salvaging the figures that would, otherwise, have merited the description nothing short of ‘gross.’ Otherwise, what could you make out of the baby elephant perched atop on all four legs balanced on various objects, proudly displaying the dazzling strips of a tiger ? “An elephant’s shape can never be changed,” Raghunadhan explains. “Even if it changes its colours, the shape remains the same.” True, you can change your colours, but not your essential character !

This is the indispensable nature of the stories that Raghu tells through his sculptures. He draws extensively from a rich reservoir of visual memories, many of them springing from a collective unconscious.  The visual memories, the remembrances, include human follies and foibles, loads of objects that we encounter everyday and the sights that flash past us as a matter of routine. He takes hold of all these familiar sights and notions,  turning them upside down with a striking easiness.

 “I don’t do any sketches or drawings as studies for the sculptures,” states Raghu.  He starts working from a particular thread that strikes him. “Once a thread is set off, memories start intervening. You remember a certain turn of a man’s neck as he gawks at a woman, or a certain manner in which a person grips an object.”
 
In all these works, an array of objects surrounds the key figure. An interesting aspect common to all Raghunadhan’s sculptures is their state of elevation. The sculptures never come into direct contact with the ground; but there is no pedestal either.  The figures rest with a precarious balance upon assorted objects that rise from the ground mostly in jumbled heaps.

These multitude of objects that have gone into the making of each work are all very much from the real world, be it the bananas, the hen with a hatch of eggs, the elephant-foot yam (‘chena’) or the ceramic jar (‘bharani’).  All these most ordinary looking objects are assembled to produce the most out-of-the-ordinary visual result.

Attempting a direct description of these figures would be somewhat like trying to describe some weird and illogical dream sequences that visit you in the hours of light sleep.  Each component is perfectly crafted, with an unnatural clarity. But all are assembled to create the perfect incongruity. It just does not make any sense, you would be forced to say.

It is this incongruity that Raghunadhan picks out as his favourite subject. He singles out the overall absurdity that happens to be at play all around. The works in 'Anecdotes,' his first solo exhibitions, displayed a much more harsh portrayal of this incongruity / absurdity. The disgust, the revulsion, the loathing targetted at the stupidities of humankind has seemingly mellowed down to a great extent now.
 
In sharp contrast to the sculptures, the relief (‘The Island’) is totally devoid of human presence. It is large, (10 x 4 feet), depicting an island-like landscape, lined with coconut trees and spattered with patches of water pools. “It is a place like Kakkathuruthu,” says Raghunadhan, referring to the island in Vembanattu Kayal (backwaters) in Alappuzha district where he has been residing for the past couple of years.

Strange forms loom ominously out of the serene landscape, looking furtive and foreboding. Some look like huge cranes, or piling machinery, all bathed in a plastic blue. The landscape looks peaceful, as if seen in a moonlit night. “After doing all these human figures, I wanted to try an unpeopled landscape,” Raghunadhan points out. “At least there is no conspicuous presence of human beings.”  

“There is a certain challenge in doing a relief,” he explains the motive behind this single work of relief.  “You will get only around three inches of thickness to express what you have to say. There is a certain illusion about the relief.  The perspective takes an interesting turn.”  Relief was also an important part of the classical history of art, with many of the ancient masters having chosen it as a favourite mode of work.

“Basically, this is all about the rare angles, like, postures I haven’t done before,” Raghunadhan says.  

‘About Six Clowns And An Island,’ will open at the Jehangir Nicholson Gallery, NCPA on October 16, 2007 and will run through 24.