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Lot 100

Akkitham Narayanan’s paintings are geometric configurations of abstract forms. With a predisposition towards the purity of geometry, he creates a fusion of Indian tantrik art and the European geometric art.

According to the artist, geometry comes from earth, a form of universal system, where everything appears simple and straight and therefore, rigid. But if we were to look at it in subjective manner, the perspective would change.... Akkitham Narayanan’s paintings are geometric configurations of abstract forms. With a predisposition towards the purity of geometry, he creates a fusion of Indian tantrik art and the European geometric art.

According to the artist, geometry comes from earth, a form of universal system, where everything appears simple and straight and therefore, rigid. But if we were to look at it in subjective manner, the perspective would change. Akkitham Narayanan’s creations are abstract in character, reflecting a deeper understanding of the nature and its varied colors and moods. The forms and colors that come repeatedly in his works remind the viewer of the chanting of a hymn, reverberating with the essence of life spirit.

The artist oversees the picture plane with a classification of space through lines, angles, squares, rectangles, and so on. There is a clever use of color within each space, which may be amorphous and smudged in some areas, or sharp in others. The blending of triangles and rectangles has a lyrical, emotive touch. Within these forms one can see thin lines suggestive of the forms of cloud and elements like fire and water. Also seen is the combination of archaic lines reminding one of letters and snakes. The artist has been inspired and influenced by traditional Kerala architecture. His colors come from the mural paintings that had inspired him during his childhood days. The color black that he uses on the canvases too reminds one of ancient Indian wall paintings and murals.

He creates the feeling of light by applying a thin coat of oil paint on the canvas and then erasing it. Using this technique to blend the colors, he creates an illusion of using watercolors and is able to retain the texture of the canvas. The color settles in the weave and lends the painting its texture. The technique thus lends a three-dimensional feel to the work. To break the monotony, he uses a knife to carve or draw lines and write out from the scriptures while the paint is still wet.

Born in Kerala, Akkhitam Narayanan studied art at the Madras College of Art and Craft, where under the tutelage of the noted painter K.C.S.Panicker his art philosophy was truly shaped. Observing his adoption of many a religious symbolism into the scheme of his pictorial language, he realized the limitation and possibilities of the intended 'indigenous art lingua'. Recognizing the fact that the palpable religious symbolism could degenerate into another convention, which could help the proliferation of 'ritualism' in art, the artist consciously chose a path where the religious symbolism could demystify itself and become a part of the high-modern abstract language that defied regional and ritualistic boundaries.

Developing an indigenous art became a pivotal issue for Akkitham Narayanan while he was staying in Delhi during mid 60s. In late 60s, he went to Paris on a scholarship to study art there and settled down there about three-and-a-half decades ago. His decision to settle down in Paris had made a lot of difference in the artist’s perceptions. His canvases became more and more refined. Irrespective of the medium, he experimented with colors and formal rhythms. Collapsing the figures into minimal forms, he naturally arrived at the field of geometric patterns, forms and shapes. Triangles, squares and circles, like individual instruments in a musical ensemble, started falling in place. Suggestions of the elemental aspects like fire, water, air, earth and ether started playing hide and seek in constructive designs of geometrical forms. Creative experiments that spread across almost four decades have refined his visual linguistics. Despite the conscious blocking of visual narratives from within the frame, a closer look at Akkitham Narayanan's works reveals that they are geometrical constructions, rather than 'formless' abstractions.

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