Pardon the pun, but let us paint a picture for you. The man is made of hues of blue and brown. You cannot see his facial expressions clearly, but his demeanour clearly indicates that he's in distress. There are parts of him that are fading away, but he is helpless. He is yet another victim of memory loss.
This painting by artist Zehra Marikar is part of the series Outside the lines 2019, Maisha Studio's annual art exhibition. All the artists who took part in it are trained under artist Aishwarya Manivannan. Explaining her artwork, Zehra says, "We could paint on anything related to the human mind. So I chose memories." The protagonist of the painting was, in fact, someone that she knows personally. "The person that you see here is my reimagination of a relative. He was suffering from memory loss. Also, many times you have people leaving your life at certain points and you find it difficult to cope with it," she says. "I've had people come up to me saying that the painting was really sad," adds the artist who completed this artwork in 3 days.
The exhibition showcased the work of 26 artists who have explored different facets of problems and complexities experienced by the human mind. It varied from depression to addiction to body shaming. For instance, there is a guitar which is reimagined as a fat lady. The artist Joyothsana S has painted pink crab apple flowers on the instrument's body. Now the perspective here is quite interesting and got us thinking for a while. Crab apples are high in fibre that facilitates weight loss. "Drowned in sorrow and feeling worthless, she (the fat woman) is hollow inside," reads the description. But crab apple here helps her quit her insecurities and makes her someone who embraces her body, the way it is.
Another highlight was the exhibition of abstract art by a few tribal students from Ramachandrapuram. A few weeks ago, Aishwarya and her students had conducted an art workshop for them. "A total of 35 children took part in the workshop. Initially, they wanted to draw the sort of pictures that they were used to. But once we spoke to them, they understood the concept of abstract and colour schemes," says Zehra. "They were open to experimenting and that resulted in these paintings," she says.
