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Breaking Free from Narratives

Thrissur based artist T.P.Premjee has been in the art scene for almost fifteen years, mostly doing experimental community projects. His recent solo show at the Kashi Gallery, Kochi reveals a new phase in his artistic career. Renu Ramanath reviews the works.

For some artists, it takes a comparatively longer spell of time to discover their individual trajectories, the right course of progress that will eventually lead them to set free their total potential as artists. It is not a delay, nor a break. But, just taking their own time to experiment and discover. 

T.P.Premjee, who exhibited his recent paintings and sculptures at Kashi Art Gallery in February, is such an artist whose work is all set to cross a new threshold, trying to break free of the barriers imposed by a host of external and internal quandaries.  He has been around in the art scene for sometime though he did not exhibit copiously.  Premjee had completed his National Diploma in Fine Arts (Sculpture) from Govt. Institute of Fine Arts, Thrissur.  Though he had studied sculpture, Premjee’s first solo exhibition in 1999, included both paintings and sculptures. 

The larger part of his career since completing the academic education had been spent in community projects and some public sculpture projects. During 2000 – 2001 Premjee had done a residency program in Hounslow, West London as a Visiting Community Artist in Residence, making public sculptures with the involvement of local student community. He had also been involved with the Manaveeyam Cultural Mission in Kerala, during which he did a sculptural project, ‘Passage’. 

From 2002, he had been working on bronze sculptures, choosing the ‘tremendous’ material for portraying the lives of the ‘irrelevant’ people around and held an exhibition of sculptures titled ‘The Irrelevant’ in 2003 at Kashi Art Café.  In 2004 also, he had held an exhibition of sculptures at the Lalitha Kala Akademi premises in Thrissur. 

However, the present show, which comes after a break of almost four years, reveals the artist as discovering an entire new avenue through his paintings. Especially the large four paintings included in the show reveal a novel approach from the artist towards colour and forms.  These works break free of narration, displaying a sensuous tone.  The forms in ‘Fruits in Pink-I,’ and ‘Fruits in Pink-II,’ take off from the bronze work, ‘Fruits in A Line,’ which shows three large fruits placed one after the other on the floor. But, in the paintings the fruits acquire a rather voluptuous nature. In ‘Pigs in Pink,’ the flesh-pink bodies of the pigs, crammed together, create a taut vortex. 

Other than the paintings, the show has six bronze sculptures and six watercolours. While the bronze sculptures that Premjee had included for his earlier solo in Kashi were rather diminutive in nature, the present ones have grown in dimensions.  The sculptures and the paintings are his latest works, done during 2007-08, but the watercolours date back a little longer and display diverse characteristics.