Anita Menon, a professor of literature puts on the artist’s hat and slips into the shoes of Anu Zafaran, an identity she dons to pursue her interests in art.
Holding her first solo exhibition ‘Anitaram: Entwined’ at David Hall in Fort Kochi, Anu’s works range from the obvious to the abstract.
A teacher for several years at the Cochin College, she gave up her career in 2010 and took to serious painting.
The show offers a fair amount of her literary affinity, the works giving colour to the tales and characters from the literary world. Anger is depicted as one of the Gorgons, Medusa with her flying hair and fierce eyes, the work inspired by the increasing cases of atrocities on women.
Luigi Pirandello’s play ‘Six characters in search of an author’ is reason for another work, while yet another, a large fish on a boat is drawn from ‘The Fish’, a poem by Elizabeth Bishop. “The fisherman watches a fish struggle on being caught and finally he releases it back in the water,” says Anu, who paints not dictated by schedule and timing but as and when inspiration strikes and motivation builds up. “I paint the things that I see around, ones that make me think and make me happy.”
A seemingly abstract work where colours meander in well formed curves, a top view from an aircraft, is about the overlooked but minute lives down below. Drawing from the current, real and modern the work uses the idea of Google Map with its little drop pin icon.
A grid of faces, visages and countenances is a work where Anu finds a synergy between the nameless characters, all communicating with each other. A work with newsprint as backdrop, with imprinted text, is about entwining of energies, “ all that goes on in life.”
Anu draws from nature, uses different mediums—acrylics and water media like gouache—with ease.
Not formally trained but pursuing art for the love of it, Anu keeps her engagement informal. A room in her home is studio and her balcony on the 15th floor apartment her inspiration point.
The show is one of her first serious exhibitions.
Displaying a nonchalance about her artistic process, picking up the brush when she is ready, she says, “I completely enjoy painting. I forget the world when I paint.”
The show concludes today.