Impressions of life

``AS AN artist I looked out for the art and found gods and goddesses pervading the stone, the walls, the wood, the music and the dances. Grown up in a plain monotheistic set up, the manifoldness of the divine pantheon struck me. What I saw was a reflection of the richness of life in all its aspects and expressions...'', writes Susanne K.V. of Cologne, Germany, talking about her impression of India when she first came here in 1996. She earlier studied art at the University of Cologne and has a wide variety of experience in different kinds of projects all over Europe. Since 1996 she has studied Carnatic music at Kerala Kalamandalam and has been living and working at a remote village in Kerala, having married a Keralite. Her paintings reveal that she has been very deeply impressed by the religion, art and dance of her adopted country.

Most of the time Susanne seems to have worked in ink, sometimes adding water-colour or pencil colours, particularly in her depiction of Kathakali dance sequences. Her black ink drawings are of free standing stone sculptures of gods and goddesses arranged in settings like temple corridors, dance halls, steps of tanks or as friezes on walls, often in dance poses. While the ornamentation around the figures are not bad, the drawing of the figures is rather weak.

Considering the quality of these drawings it is difficult to believe the same hand has drawn the Kathakali dancers in varied poses in their elaborate, colourful customes, headgear and facial male-up.

They are so realistic that they look like photographs, until one has gone close enough to note the pen strokes. It is most likely that they are worked-over photographs.

Susanne has also done some very small landscapes of Kerala and Karnataka. Her paintings are on show at A Portfolio of Art Happenings (Apparao Gallery, Wallace Garden 3rd St) till August 20; Tuesday - Saturday 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. Monday 2 - 7 p.m.

LAKSHMI VENKATRAMAN

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