Inside the depths of a temple shrine, is a world that’s defined by smells — the fragrance of camphor, incense, oil and flowers. Can the time spent in it with the feet touching the cold stone floors, be captured in art? Benitha Perciyal attempts to do just that — her works, marked by the use of materials close to Nature, mirror these experiences. An interesting tribe of artists, who use such materials in their works, exists in the art world today.
For Benitha, it’s “all about the process”. Rather than squeezing colour out of a tube, she enjoys creating her own. “When I boil and soak material to discover a colour and paint with it on a surface, I know where it’s from and what went into it,” she says. Unlike poster or water colours, with which she worked initially, she says this experience is “so much different”.
Benitha uses seeds, tea dust, mineral salts, rice paper, powdered kadukkai , cinnamon powder, and frankincense for her works. Her sculptures of Christian imagery made of incense material are on display at the ongoing Kochi-Muziris Biennale. “Incense is part of traditional rituals. But when the smell vanishes it becomes a memory,” she says. Her works portray this “memory”.
Not just paintings and sculptures, natural elements are used in art installations as well. Artist Kumaresan Selvaraj has used brass bells, manjal , vibhuti , and kumkumam in his works. He believes that these substances, used mostly for religious purposes, are things of beauty rather than meaning. For his recent show, he created a three-foot structure made of turmeric powder that resembles a ‘pudicha Pillaiyar’, a clump of turmeric that represents lord Ganesha. “I use natural materials when my work demands it,” he explains.
Paris Viswanathan, who was among the founding members of the Cholamandal Artists’ Village, has inspired artist G. Gurunathan to use pigment colours. The 32-year-old, who works at Lalit Kala’s studio, mixes them with bases he creates himself. “I boil milk and squeeze lemon for it to curdle. I then make a paste out of this as base,” he explains. Guru also soaks limestone in water overnight and uses the water that rises to the surface as a base.
All this, he feels, adds a certain effect to his paintings that oil or water colours cannot achieve. “The colours look fresh, with a beautiful transparent quality. They do not look plastic,” he explains. “If I paint a flower with acrylic, it will tend to shine. But a flower doesn’t gleam in real life, does it?” he asks. The use of natural colours, he says, makes one “relate to the painting”.
Leaves, water, driftwood, seeds, sunlight, eggshells… artists the world over are being drawn to natural elements. Mitsuru Koga from Japan and Lorenzo Manuel Duran Silva from Spain carve intricate images on leaves; Richard Shilling shapes breath-taking structures that resemble stained-glass using leaves.
Art works that consist of natural elements have an organic fragrance about them. “The entire gallery will have the fragrance of a temple,” says artist V. Yuvan Bothysathuvar who recently used turmeric and vibhuti at a show. He also employs jute fibres and paper in his works. Paper is his key ingredient; he uses it in various forms to tell stories and portray images.
Aneesh K.R. uses wood, stones and sand in his installations; so does Sujeeth Kumar Sree Kandan. At a group show recently, Sujeeth used sand from the beach to create the effect of waves. Aneesh collected stones from his travels to the various parts of the country to create an installation. “The structure resembled good luck stones that travellers to the Himalayas pile on the wayside during their climb up,” he explains.
True to their nature, these elements tend to change with time. Guru says that the art pieces need to be well kept. “Their life depends on the way the paintings are maintained,” he says. For Benitha, it’s the fact that her works change that draws her towards organic ingredients. Her incense sculpture at the Biennale, for instance, will lose its fragrance with each passing day. “The smell will fade away; the structure will decay and transform into something else,” she says. It’s this journey of her art towards the unknown that fascinates her. “In the end, it will go back to the Earth where it all began.”
