Language of landscapes

In every image displayed at the Gallery OED in Mattancherry, you can see the landscape. Only the form and shade varies. While some paintings portray landscape as such, others have elements of a landscape painted in a subjective manner.  A tribute to late artist Rajan Krishnan, the show, Land-forms curated by Kathleen Wyma, features artwork of Rajan and other artists like Abdul Hisham, Dibin Thilakan, K.P. Pradeepkumar, Ranjith Raman, Sujith S.N. and Sanam Narayanan.

“Landscape has all the features of language,” reads the curatorial note. “Landscape is pragmatic, poetic, rhetorical, polemical. Landscape is the scene of life, cultivated construction and carrier of meaning.”

Consider the canvas as a piece of land. The paintings speak volumes. About nature and every little being linked to it. If Rajan Krishnan’s six works show nature’s different forms, the seventh one depicts a rail track, an element of urbanscape. Then, there is a big canvas, which has two buildings resembling hills entangled with creepers. The three small paintings of cactus may look like three faces to a poetic mind. You may feel the cactus tilt heads on a closer look.  

Take Dibin’s three large paintings, they talk about men and women and the attachment, both physical and emotional, they share in the circle of life. Some are dressed while others roam around naked and carefree. Arrows, pregnant woman and bright hues are some of the characteristics of Dibin’s paintings.  

Sujith’s works, which are quite mysterious in nature, reflect a man’s thoughts. K. Pradeepkumar’s two paintings show two forests in different tones. The trees are tall and the white flowers follow a pattern.

Fabric, thread and colours appear in Ranjith’s works that look like a collage. Pieces of clothes are put on the canvas with some splash of colour. The embroidery patterns can be interpreted as links connecting them all.

Then, there are creative expressions of Abdul and Sanam. Sanam has, again, drawn nature, but in a subtle way. There are leafy as well as wilted trees, perhaps denoting the existence of two sides of a landscape. A certain energy passes through his works. Abdul’s works are a bit gloomy and feature a man confronting some unique creatures. Water forms the backdrop of his work and it seems he is hunting down the forces. Land-forms is open till February 10.