March meeting - Line in acrylic painting and Line in Ikebana

 March 20th 2021

Sixteen members of the Chennai Sogetsu Study Group were connected via Google Meet to explore further the concept of line, as an art principle.  We were delighted to have Mr Saravanan from Cholamandal as a participant in this dialogue with Riji sensei Malathi.  He is a painter and sculptor, working with acrylic and metal relief as well.  Exposed to art since childhood, as scion of M. Senathipathi, one of the prominent artists of the Madras Art Movement, he has been exhibiting his work from 1995 onwards.

“My father M Senathipathi, an eminent artist of the Madras Art Movement, is my mentor. He is the president of Cholamandal Artists Village. As a child, I remember travelling from my home in Saidapet to the studio at Cholamandal Artists Village where my father worked. The ambience and watching the workmanship of senior artists made a huge impact on me. This motivated me to pursue art as a full-fledged passion,” he shared, in a press interview.

Mr Saravanan’s works in repoussé reflect his experimentation and growing adeptness with a different visual language of metal relief, with acrylic.  In fact, many of his acrylic works are getting a new lease of life in repoussé metal relief form, especially his earlier Tribal Village and Dream series, as well as a new mythology series.

Mr. Saravanan demonstrated from his Cholamandal studio how he used the pencil to bring out the form he intended to work on  first on his chosen canvas. He is drawn to tribal art as a form of humanity that we have lost in urban centres.  He then created ‘texture’ by which he used a knife to embed white colour after which his favourite was yellow and then brown, to him these colours harmonised the tribal theme. As time was short, he then showed us some completed work, where he would then uses his imagination to bring out through colours and shapes his perception of tribal ethos.

Malathi then demonstrated from her residence.  She used Line in ikebana to show Movement and  Direction. She used basic textbook lessons to bring out Movement and balance and proportion, and by shifting kenzan positions and angles how the same material helps you to perceive different expressions.
 

 It was a very useful revision on the most important basic aspect of Line.

As she remarked to Mr Saravanan, in Ikebana, the container is our canvas, and the main lines are our framework, like a sketch, and then we add flowers etc, like a painter would add colour and texture.

Some of our members wished to understand why Mr Saravanan chose acrylic which was so quick to dry and therefore challenging.  He answered that that was the very reason he chose it - one has to be quick. sure and ready to work with the results.  He opined that he likes the good quality and colours taht are available in acrylic.

It was a satisfying session indeed.