Artist Vincent S feels simple lines and squiggles can speak as loud as elaborate strokes. His ongoing solo exhibition of drawings and sketches in the city perhaps bears testimony to his craft. Using pen and ink on paper as his “intimate medium”, Vincent chiefly attempts to capture “the modern-day man and his avaricious exploits”, especially his relation with Nature, through 200-odd works.
Black is the chosen shade for most of his works on display. “The colour assumes multiple levels of meaning depending on the subject and the context. It can signify both a state of mind and the state of affairs,” says Vincent, a native of Kanjiramkulam.
Vincent S
Despite trading the smudgy sweep of brush strokes for the controlled exactitude of pen, Vincent embeds his pieces with a high level of detailing, often leaving hardly any room for ‘white spaces’ in several of the works. He achieves this artistic refinement with a deft combination of “different types of dots, lines, curls and swirls” apart from careful ink smudges that lend the impression of water colours. He says the drawings depict his “change in his artistic sensibilities” spanning the last 35 years.
A contrasting take of forests and leafless trees appear as a leitmotif in his works, something Vincent says represents “loss and privation that masquerade as the trajectory of human progress”, while quickly referencing the ongoing Australian bushfire crisis. “The course has been from being hunter-gatherers heavily depended on forests and wildlife to flagrant nature exploiters turning a blind eye to the present and the posterity,” says Vincent, who’s currently doing Masters at the College of Fine Arts.
A drawing by Vincent S
One highlight is the “needle art”, wherein subjects and details are traced using a needle upon fresh paintings. Abstract pieces on seascape, cricket and a mother-son duo form part of the works done using this technique. A drawing on the aftermath of cyclone Ockhi centres on the theme of survival. “Whether man or animal, survival is a basic instinct. It’s both primal and primary,” says Vincent, who founded Ananda Kala Kendram in Kanjiramkulam, an institution for painting and sculpture.
Another distinct work is a “new media experimental” piece that shows a composite of three separate drawings pieced together on the same frame, the whole of which is then pasted on a blown-up photograph depicting raging fire in the background.
A work by Vincent S
Vincent says he has not given titles to any of his works as a conscious choice. “I would like to leave the interpretation to the viewer who is free to come up with his/her own,” he adds.
The exhibition will be on at Kerala Lalithakala Academy Art Gallery, Vyloppilly Samskrithi Bhavan, till January 28. Timing: 11 am to 6 pm
