Art: Vibrant palette

Indian artist and film set designer Thota Tharrani creates an outburst of emotions with splashes, blobs and sweeping strokes on canvas, writes VIMALA SENEVIRATNE

AGAINST a brilliant colourful background, a solid black line meanders across the canvas and dancing alongside are red, yellow and white thin lines. It’s as if these lines are following the rhythm of a particular music. This painting is Thota Tharrani’s interpretation of classical music composer Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. “The music was playing in the background when I was painting and I just let my feelings guide me, and the brush, quite naturally, followed the rhythm of the music,” says the noted Indian artist and art director who is in Kuala Lumpur for the opening of a new art gallery in Bangsar called Artspace. The Four Seasons is part of a series of paintings by Tharrani now on display at this gallery. Paintings based on the Four Seasons evoke the splendour of Nature. Earth and the sky are depicted in awesome spectacles of colour and light – brilliant orangy red rising or setting sun, billowing clouds in white, bright blue sky and greenish blue earth. There are also lots of splashes, streaks, blobs and swirls on the canvases. “Art is very fluid, without boundaries and I interpret what I see and feel through my work,” says Tharrani as he picks up a black marker pen and swiftly sketches on white paper, a typical Rajasthani scene – a woman with her flowing long skirt and veil balancing a pot on her head as she walks with a peacock in tow, through a street. The sketch is done in less than a minute. Handing it to me, he gives a smile. “That’s my art work for today. I must do at least one sketch or painting a day, otherwise I feel incomplete,” adds Tharrani who has held scores of art exhibitions and won numerous international and local awards for his work in the art and cinema world. He is also the only art director in India to receive the Padmashri Award (the highest award for contribution to the country) from the Government of India. Tharrani displayed a natural talent for art from the age of four. “I was at a temple when I spotted a statue of Buddha. I was fascinated by it and immediately drew a quick sketch of it. That got me started,” says the soft-spoken Tharrani who was also exposed to the art world by his father, also a film art director. By 12, Tharrani was drawing and painting and his works astounded members of the Madras Art Club. After completing his formal education, he took off to Paris on a scholarship from the French Government, to study printmaking. He returned to India at 20 and began exhibiting his works in group and solo exhibitions. A serious, down-to-earth artist, independent of the necessity to wait for an inspiration or mood, he proved his worth through his prolific work. He captures on canvas a wide range of subjects – variations of Lord Ganesha, music, wooden montages as well as a series of quaintly charming sketches of film studio backyard relics. Meanwhile, he also tried his hands at creating film sets and found that he had a natural flair for it. He is one of the first art directors in India to create film sets that are three-dimensional in nature. He was responsible for the creation of a realistic set of the Dharavi slums in Bombay for director Mani Ratnam’s film Nayakam in 1988, as well as the sets for flights of fantasy in Sivaji The Boss last year. His designs, he says, are drawn on inch-graph paper to scale so that they can be easily erected. Set designing is another facet of art. “That’s just an extension of what I do and although I have been at it for almost 43 years now, my first love is always painting. That’s what I am born to do.” Tharrani is one of few artists who does not restrict himself to any one particular medium. It is his zeal for creating something novel and unique that keeps him going.

Thota Tharrani’s art works are on display at Artspace (44-A, Jalan Telawi 5, Bangsar Baru, KL) till Oct 31, from 11am-7pm daily.