Artitude: Narrative art: A journey through time

People have been A Rajeswara Rao’s muses, always. The artist soaks in the pleasures, desires, wants and needs of the maze of people around him and celebrates their appearances, their happiness and their courage to flaunt, decipher themselves with a new abandon, thrashing their inhibitions, if any.

“Pretensions are a need here that alternate into a necessity. I am concerned with the ‘high’ of these pretensions — so what if one loses oneself in the muddle of confusions and ununderstandability over the time. That would be an entirely different canvas, maybe later,”smiles Rajeswara Rao, who is presently leaving art aficionados spell bound with his solo exhibition ‘satirical symphony’ at the State Gallery of Art, Kavuri Hills in Madhapur.

From Rajas to land of nawabs

Migrating to Hyderabad, the city of Nawabs from Vizianagaram also a seat for the royalty in 1988, Rajeswara Rao could not but feel the difference in culture, attire and aesthetics between the Rajas and the nawabs. “My shift from Vizainagaram, a small culturally evolved town to Hyderabad into a totally different milieu and then, years later, moving to a small forlorn village on the city outskirts (Hyderguda) are the two events that markedly brought a change in my art practice,” he says.

Satirical symphony

A witness to the metamorphic change of this village from a small hamlet with rich green fields, small tiled houses, little wayside temples, bicycles, a primary school, a Post Office, and all things that constitute a small village and above all the simple people and their local traditions, is what fascinated him.

He feels the narcissism and the consumerism, is rampant, loud and unapologetic. He says the ‘development’ started around 2000 onwards, the real estate boom happened and along with it, came the transformation.

“The old tiled houses and the fields transpired into a concrete jungle with multistories and gated communities. The farmers became real estate heroes and the lesser ones brokers. People flaunting gold jewellery, brands, ray ban sunglasses, Armani suits, Gucci shoes, etc and big cars. It was such a fantasy,” says the renowned artist, of all that captured his imagination and became his muses involuntarily.

Creative process

Acrylic colour on Acrylic sheet is the medim. “Drawing is done, colour applied, rolled, scratched and the painting is completed on the acrylic sheet,” informs Rajeswara Rao. A paper is then added enabling dimension, volume and luminosity to the work. “This is reverse painting inspired by the age old Tanjore Glass Painting manifest in a contemporary manner,” he says.

Rao draws his observations of people and their tales, documenting them with photographic perfection but ultimately portraying them in a make-believe universe. Even though the artist is deeply concerned about these situations, his depictions of them are witty, dramatic, and humourous. His multifaceted compositions instantaneously evoke the viewer’s own dreams and fantasies.