THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: An honest outpour of thoughts and anxieties creating huge undercurrents inside an artistic mind. V V Raman Kiran’s rendering on canvas can best be interpreted in this one sentence. In numerous hues and shades, a wide gamut of themes speak on the futility of war, innocence of love, tranquility of nature tampered by human intervention through abstract expressions. As literature can be read between the lines, his compositions can be read in-between the layers. Aptly titled ‘World Apart’, the exhibition of 28 paintings on acrylic traverses through the innermost feelings of an artist who laments over the pathetic condition of the world that is torn apart. In one of his paintings, the adversity of nuclear war is depicted by abundantly exploring the possibilities of the colour red. According to him red stands for war, love and energy. Detailing his work of art, Raman asks, “men trigger off nuclear war making all the ills infect on earth. And finally the one who wins his side calls himself victorious. On what grounds can he be called so?” The painting speaks of darkness, the leftover of the lethal attack, consuming everything without leaving a ray of hope for life. Death, for a common man is all about loss and grief. But Raman would say it is beautiful. One of his works represents the transcendental state where the ‘athma’, the essence of life departs from the body. Soon after the soul leaves, it provides space for another life to bloom on earth. The artist intends a cyclic balance of life and death to maintain natural equilibrium. His is a mission to fill the voids existing among humans and nature. It has always been a recurring question on how to heal the man-made wounds on nature. For Raman, it just needs the aid of a thread so that the gaps can be fastened through few stitches. Though they appear as mere threads, these stitches communicate the commitment each men can swear to save the boons of nature. Next he calls our attention towards an ultra-sophisticated office of a multinational company. Separated by cabins, each person is enclosed in a world of his own. Employees are classified on the basis of the official ranks they hold. And the artist explains, “all we need is two pieces of bread to survive and some six feet space on earth to be buried. The boundaries are meaningless once we view human life as a whole”. Here also he used the threads to join together the man-made gulfs lying between human relations. An ardent devotee of Lord Shiva, he says, his inspiration to make brushstrokes began with the God’s avocation of translating his thoughts through colours. “In the vacuum, he gave life to his thoughts in the form of energy, that converted into colours. Therefore colours are best suited to express thoughts in our mind,” Raman says. Hailing from Chhattisgarh, Raman Kiran is the editor of Jungle Book, a monthly magazine in Hindi. The exhibition at the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi Art Gallery at Vyloppilli Samskriti Bhavan will be on till Saturday.
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