Kathakali - Minukku Vesham Print

website: My childhood growing up in Mukkam orphanage, the years I spent as a photographer in the Middle East, and my interest in Indian mythology inspire my art. I work with oil paint, acrylic, pastels, pencil, and ink on a variety of materials including canvas, paper, cloth, velvet, and cardboard. The spice trade and trade routes between Arabia, the west, and my south Indian village has molded my world as I know it. This rich history, traditions, and literature have been the primary theme of my works. I have been experimenting for years with Oil color portraits teaching myself the tricks and techniques through my own works. My first solo exhibition was conducted in 2006 and included the portraits of Kerala State's Political and Cultural leaders. I am more interested in working with watercolors. Capturing beautiful landscapes and natural beauty fastly with strokes can be considered my specialty. I continue my experimentation with mediums, styles, and genres. A solo exhibition in a nearby district in 2007 was quite successful and got me recognition in the media. I have experimented with both oil and dry Pastels too. I tried them on different surfaces - velvet cloth, the smooth side of the hardboard, different types of canvases, etc. Working on color pencils became easier once Good quality color pencils were available in the Indian market. I made a few portraits with just as much finishing as in an oil color painting. In 2008, I started working on Mural paintings. I tried the traditional Kerala style of mural art found in most of the ancient temples in Southern India and experimented with it. Sticking to the restrictions on strokes and colors was hard but the works were beautiful. In spite of being a self-trained artist, I have managed to establish a drawing training class for children in Kerala where art education was not much entertained before. I conducted an art exhibition with artworks pooled in by my students in 2008 at Malappuram Lalita Kala Acadamy Art Gallery (Malappuram). This was an opportunity for most of them to get recognized and introduced to the field as well as the media. As someone who grew up without easy access to learning resources, I dedicated a significant amount of my time to helping children with inaccessibility to train to excel in this field. I have taught many physically disabled and financially suppressed students in painting and sketching for free.