"Metamorphosis : The Changing World of Thota Vaikuntam" solo art exhibition at Art Alive Gallery S-221, Panchsheel Park > 10th-31st March 2011

Time : 
10th March : 6:30 pm
11th to 31st March : 11:00 am - 7:00 pm

Entry : Free

Place  : Art Alive Gallery S-221, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110017

Venue Info : www.artalivegallery.com | Map | Nearest Metro Station - 'Hauz Khas'
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Event Details : Art Alive Gallery presents 'Metamorphosis' The Changing World of Thota Vaikuntam.
This March Art Alive Gallery ushers in the Spring season on a ‘masterful’ note with a showing of veteran Thota Vaikuntam’s recent collection of works entitled Metamorphosis: The changing world of Thota Vaikuntam.
Keeping to his quintessential style Vaikuntam’s latest works resonate his enduring love for music, showcasing particularly his fascination with the figure of the flutist, one of the ‘characters’ he has returned to repeatedly in his forty year long journey as an artist.
As a child Vaikuntam was enraptured by the local performers in his area.  In fact before discovering his obvious gift with images he was intent on performing himself.   In his native land, Telengana, performance was hardly ever devoid of music. Music drew him to theatre and then later, as an adult, it drew him to films. Vaikuntam’s brief stint in the movie business as an art director proved fruitful and earned him a national award. But few know that his fascination for cinema started mainly with his penchant for melody. Even today music continues to enthrall the veteran artist. The works included in this collection suitably reflect this longstanding, and little known, passion that Vaikuntam cherishes for music.
“Metamorphosis began as a series on music,” he explains, but it soon transformed, rather unexpectedly and beyond his control to an expression of Radha and Krishna. If the subject chose itself, Vaikuntam is amazed at how the works compelled him to work harder, more diligently, on his nuances. “The compositions here are more delicate,” he himself observes, “the lines are far more robust.”
Vaikuntam’s iconic figuration and distinctive visual vocabulary took years of toil and days of agonizing existential crisis to finally evolve into its unmistakable form. Only in the 80’s with the introduction of colour in his canvases was he finally embraced by the Indian art aficionados and the contemporary Indian art market. Fittingly, his works from this period command exclusive attention, barely allowing the viewers eye to stray from itself.  Amongst the many subjects he depicts in these the ‘Telangana Women’ are clearly (and confessedly) his personal favourite. Vaikuntam’s portrayal of the traditional Telangana women, typically adorned in intricately patterned saris, a large, perfectly rounded bindi sitting at the centre of the forehead, her dark complexion yellowed with the application of turmeric, her voluptuous body barely withheld within the folds of her garment, is in many ways comparable to Paul Gauguin’s portrayal of the Tahitian women. Undoubtedly Vaikuntam’s works helped do for Telangana what Gauguin did for Tahiti; assimilate and crystallize the identity of a community in terms of female iconification.
Vaikuntam’s men suffered in comparison, often just lending support to a composition, the weaker of the two in the relationship. Even though the women were primarily companions and care-givers, they seemed imbued with a sense of majesty, allowing them to be drawn to but ultimately detached from their male counterparts. But if there was a suggestion of conflict between the two then in this new manifestation Vaikuntam has obliterated it in an effort to cast his protagonists in a new mould. No longer is there a sense of disharmony in their liaison, instead, they are in perfect affiliation, marking a state of sublime harmony. ‘As you look at the new body of paintings, you cannot help but be moved by the melding of the male and the female into a single entity’ says art writer Kishore Singh ‘it is almost if by rendering them thus Vaikuntam means to celebrate the Ardhanarishwar, the male:female protagonists, who, though whole by themselves, are but strangely incomplete without their masculine:feminine counterparts’.
‘There is the suggestion of bhakti-ras in these works’ Art Alive Gallery director Sunaina Anand points out ‘the notes of spirituality in these works are plangent in their intensity. If you look closely you will notice that the flute playing men and the women who appear in this collection often have their eyes shut. This is not a usual motif in Vaikuntam’s earlier works. But you comprehend the need for the closed eyes almost instinctively. It signifies submission, in the hands of music. It signifies the sort of ecstasy only music can offer.’
With the compositions having grown more delicate, even perhaps piquant, Vaikuntam has intentionally lightened his palette too. The colours are still bright and contrasting, but there now appears to be a greater sophistication in their application – almost as if Vaikuntam is renouncing the temporal for the spiritual.
The muse has morphed slightly and the artist’s brush has recorded the change with a subtle shift in its rendition, but the portraits remain unchanged in their iconic stature. In that invincibility eventually lies Thota Vaikuntam’s strength as an artist.

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