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Sumesh Kamballur

Born in Kasargode, a northern district in Kerala, Sumesh Kamballur got his initiation in art through ritual and kitsch art. Later he joined the Trivandrum Fine Arts College and obtained BFA in Painting. Currently he is a post graduate student in Kalabhavana, Santiniketan. Sumesh’s paintings take their inspiration from nature, its uses and abuses. He is concerned with the process of globalization and its effects on human life. He likes to weave in mythical episodes to the contemporary aspects of life in his paintings.

When did Sumesh Kamballur realize that he had an artistic bend? 

I was born and brought up in a remote village of Kasargode disrict in Kerala, which was highly Left dominated and religiously ritualistic from other parts of Kerala. My visual sensory was enriched by the visual dynamism of Theyyam and Thira (two dominant religious ritual art forms) as well as the popular calendar images of gods and the living gods of the popular cinema and politics. These images were often copied and displayed on walls without knowing the inadequacy of the childish rendering, though painting was giving rather pleasure more than any other childhood activities could have. While pursuing this drawing temperament, unexpectedly the three dimensional qualities of human anatomy evolved in my paintings and this gave initial impetus to see drawing and painting as a serious activity. Moreover popular billboard portrait paintings became a source of painting techniques in my school days and face paintings of Theyyam and Thira were also an inspiration source in my childhood.  

Who initiated him into serious art? 

When I was in my 6th standard, I was influenced by a drawing teacher who gave prime instructions about composition and discrimination of painting mediums and scientific use of them. Having completed my schooling he gave me a perception about artistic career and where should I have gone for studying art. For me Trivandrum College of fine arts was an ultimate destination. 
 
Where did he study art and how was the training like? How does he explain his works during the B F A? 

I joined in Trivandrum College of fine arts in 2002 for B F A. After completing my preliminary technical integration course for sculpting and painting I chose painting as a specialization subject .Being alienated from the modesty of my native and part of a city tribe I had often felt that we were somehow guided by the power of human desires. Nature always becomes a victim of these exploitations and man has been aware of the consequences of it. However, this process exploitation goes on in different forms.

As an art student this kind of fear about surroundings and absurdity of the urban life led my way. My works were also romanticized at that time  As a protesting way I painted the local motifs of my native as a visual documentation and glorification of the folk culture against the rapid urbanization and the exploitation of nature. This was fairly appreciated by faculties and compelled me to make constant settlement in the personal style and use of idioms especially in the characterization of the images rather simply copying the nature as it is with genuine craft. But the stylistic paradigm shift happened in third year. I felt a certain idiom of painting should be evolved from the blend of indigenous aesthetical access and genre rather than the all idealization of the images. I tried to capture the genre scenes from the village life of the north Malabar in a naïve style though I was academically trained. The popular anecdotes of village life were presented in my works with historical and mythical references of Kerala. The hybrid nature of the images, often reminiscences the synthetic paintings of the so called company paintings of colonial India and the use of the bright colures create an array of the prismatic vista of the nature. The sensuous forms from the nature are always chosen and heterogeneous flora and fauna of Kerala are used as the predominant and the basic components of the embellishment of my painting. My paintings are evolved from the current eco politics of Kerala and I was trying to put forward some visual statements through satirical visual ballads against fabrication of the land lows  
 
What did he do during his post graduate days? 

The post graduate days of Santiniketan gave me an entirely different experience from the other institutions. This opened to me a way to the world of artistic realization and introspection. The necessity of art in a society is seen here and a big community of artists is staying here and working with the influence of the great Indian masters like Nandalal Bose, Ramkinker Baij, Rabindranath Tagore and Binod Behari Mukherjee. The nature oriented point of view of Kalabhavana art teaching system has helped me to nourish my stream of thoughts. Here I am trying to magnify my artistic realm on basis of nature-centric philosophy and a point of view of the Santiniketan masters. And it has helped me to get a self clarification in my creative realm.

How did art history influence him? 

Understandings about history of art and the observation of the master’s works have helped me to develop a self criticism to standardize my works especially Brughel’s sarcastic and thought provoking way of making genre compositions and Paul Gauguin’s painterly simplicity which abandoned the naturalism of the impressionist to use colors in flat. These kinds of approaches to paintings have been influencing me since the initial stage of my artist career.

How does he explain his current art practice?

I think my post graduation works are the creative extension of my graduation works and it seems to have been diverted into a synthesis epitome of painterly idioms and personal myths. Provincial history and the cultural decay of Malabar is brought to my canvases as an irony to what has been superficially said about that and whatever is retained and preserved in the name of cultural nurturing. Decline of the cultural values and belated aftermath of the globalization and how does it affect the common people are taking place in my recent painting as witty incidents and colorful fantasy. To elucidate and represent the present genre scenes around me, I have been using the possibility of very bright and plastic acrylic colors. 

What does he think about the art market? 

The sudden embarkation of big marketing in art has made positive nuance in the artist point of views from olden days of the artist. It compels the artist to become professional. The art market has given some opportunity to see some fabulous shows especially in Kerala and Mumbai though it has some consequences like all other art shows. Lot of young artists are highlighted and so many experimental art works are coming to the art stream as we have never seen before. I think this is the golden phase of the Indian art and also lot of Indian artist ‘s works are being discussed in the international  art streams.