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Vibrant sketches
THE INITIAL impact a place, be it a city or a village, has on a person depends on his/her character, likes and dislikes, the background one come from, etc. And New York! A cauldron of every conceivable culture in the world, breath-taking. The experience of Julius Macwan has been no different. His perception of New York, revealed through his paintings and sketeches, done during July and September when he was there, on show recently at the Alliance Francaise de Chennai, perhaps shocked some of the viewers. He symbolises the vibrancy and power of the place by large acrylic paintings and a few sketches of the abdomen and various coloured g-strings, which also lend the titles for the works such as `Yellow Mary', `Blue and Chains', etc. His broad brush strokes effectively portrayed the muscular strength of the human torso.
Quick but sensitive pencil sketches and water colours of some parts of New Jersey, Philadelphia and a few places in New York itself like the Time Square, Museum of Modern Art also emerged form Julius. His mixed media works again took a look at the physical/sexual side of life, which occupies considerable space in the newspaper advertisements. Julius had taken pages of classified advertisements of `Adult Bodywork', `Male Body work' etc. and painted over them torsos of men and women; he had not spared colour posters with female models with strong physicality. Many of his sketches also concentrated on the rounded backsides of women. Macwan's big paintings needed a larger wall area to show them to advantage, one thought, as one left the small gallery.
LAKSHMI VENKATRAMAN
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