Date:18/11/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/fr/2005/11/18/stories/2005111801340300.htm

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Art in her heart

Priyadarsshini Sharma

Betty Tharakan's art is a melting pot of impressions and experiences.

Photo: H. Vibhu

INSPIRED ART: Betty Tharakan.

The easel is in her bedroom. And though she wishes like all artists, "to have a little studio," lack of space, busy schedules, raising a family, travel and transfers have not prevented her from being an artist for over 40 years.

Betty Tharakan, exhibiting 84 of her works at the Durbar Hall gallery, in Kochi, is a self-taught artist, driven by a passion to, "leave footprints in the sands of time."

Betty Tharakan does not wait for inspiration to strike but wields the pencil, charcoal, or the brush as easily as she does the cooking ladle, the needle and thread, the strings of the veena, the keys of the harmonium, piano, or the synthesizer. But from her varied accomplishments she has chosen the canvas as her most expressive medium.

Displaying a range of subjects, techniques, colour combinations, Betty's art is not abstract. It speaks for itself and speaks in all simplicity.

"I am a realist. I like the works of the masters. I am not comfortable with abstract art," she says.

With the works of Ravi Varma as prototype, the great painter inspires a large part of her work.

"In recreating the work of a master, your admiration for him shows. I am constantly trying to reach his art. I am now trying to perfect the lustre of pearls in the jewellery, in his paintings," she says. It is the desire for perfection that has made her paint unceasingly for four decades.

Recalling what K.J. Jesudas once told her, "Art is like brass. The more you polish it, the more it shines," she believes in constant practice and feels her art to be an extension of an all-consuming hobby.

Arab influence

Another very discernible strain that runs through her art is the Middle Eastern influence having spent a productive part of her painting career there. Arab portraits, landscapes, still life are some themes while oil on velvet, a Persian technique, imparts the characteristic Arabian style.