When a group of artistically-inclined friends launched a city-based holiday company some time ago, they hoped that the tour packages will mediate an exchange of art and culture. “As the firm took roots, we wanted to move on to something more concrete and thought of opening an art gallery that will showcase contemporary art,” says Priya Harikumar, one of the promoters of Gallery - The Creant, which is holding its opening exhibition at Vyloppilli Samskrithi Bhavan.The gallery, now functioning on the first floor of Edamala Plaza at Vazhuthacaud, has come up as a joint venture of Genser Holidays and some of the members of Koottam, the online community of Malayalees around the world.“The Creant is set to be socially and philanthropically active by organising art events that support humanitarian, political and environmental causes,” says Priya. “We hope to organise events at least every three months. It will be a platform for creativity, education and commerce,” she says.The opening exhibition features the works of eight artists of repute including N N Rimzon, Sajitha Shankhar, Bhagyanath, Pradeep Puthoor, Razi Mohammed, K P Reji, Zakkir Hussain and S Prasanna Kumar. Titled, ‘Trayati’, the show has on display a range of artistic expressions that include paintings, charcoal drawings and sculptures. Doing justice to the motto of the new gallery - to act as an artistic interlocutor in the art space where culture rarely responds to the contemporary art scene – the works are loaded with political and cultural overtones.Zakkir Hussain’s huge painting, ‘Zero Tolerance’, for instance, is a bold statement on the pastiche of post-modern times. Razi Mohammed’s ‘Sphere of Our Sorrows’ and ‘Waiting for Banyan Leaves’ similarly have images evocative of the volatile social and cultural spaces. Razi, who has made a mark as an art director, has transported the visual dynamics of stage and film productions to the canvas through life-size images and brilliant colour combinations.Sajitha Shankhar’s three paintings on display belong to her ‘Alter Bodies’ series which experiment with the metaphysics of human anatomy. Pradeep Puthoor’s two paintings in the series – ‘Waves of Seeing’ – arrest your attention with the deliberate distortion of images painted in repulsively bright colours.Bhagyanath and N N Rimzon have showcased drawings that evoke totally different moods on canvas. While the former attempts to trace the evolution of human beings through straight, masterly pencil strokes on transparent paper, the wilderness and water bodies appear repeatedly in the drawings of Rimzon. K P Reji makes a placid observation on the encroachment of mechanisation on the simple order of life in ‘Tuti Nama’. The two sculptures by Prasanna Kumar, ‘Golden Fish’ and ‘Chopped Off’, prove to be strongly-worded social commentary crafted in a combination of fiber glass and bronze.With more shows in the offing under the auspices of The Creant, the gallery will hopefully mitigate the long-standing woe of the city’s art connoisseurs that it is bereft of dynamic art spaces save the state-owned galleries.The exhibition is on at the Kerala Lalitkala Akademi Art Gallery, Vyloppilli Samskriti Bhavan, Thiruvananthapuram, till May 29.
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