Kozhikode: ‘Meeting Life,’ the photography exhibition under way at the Lalithakala Akademi art gallery here by friends and former college mates P.V. Jayaram and V.P. Shijith, has more than one sense to its title. While their show is a meeting place of lives in Canada, where the former is based, and India, where the latter is pursuing PhD, it is also for this show that the duo has met up for the first time ever since their undergraduate days in a college at Vadakara more than 10 years ago.
Snaps of Jayaram, a contemporary photographer and a fine art print specialist in Regina, Canada, are predominantly landscapes reflecting the numerous shades of life in the North American State through changing seasons. However, these distinctly beautiful pictures may leave a viewer confused as to whether they are real photographs or paintings. For, most of the snaps had their colour enhanced using the HDR (High Dynamic Range) technology. “However, no new component is introduced to the frame,” says the artist, whose works hang on the walls of numerous homes abroad as limited edition fine art. Some of his particularly beautiful frames include that of Niagara Falls, abandoned vehicle frozen in winter and shots from Canadian countryside.
‘Doors and Windows’
The 36 photographs by Shijith included in the show are part of a series named ‘Doors and Windows’ and are taken from different parts of the country including Kerala, Maharashtra, Goa and Telangana. They look at life through the eyes of a highly sensitive village boy. Doors for him are the symbol of freedom. “They often stand for hope,” he says.
His fascination for colours and natural designs and man-made structures is visible in snap. “I pick up camera to gather energy to move on,” says the artist, who is a PhD scholar in designing at the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad. The series includes doors and windows on structures new and old from various cultures and landscapes. His subjects, both live and inanimate, incredibly merge with the setting in most of the frames and that quality compels the viewer to spend more time before each frame.
A common trait of the duo’s snaps is that they are close to painting, of course in different ways.
The show will end on Saturday.
