About

Iam Chennai based artist from India. I have done my bachelor degree in College of Fine arts,Kumbakonam and my masters in College of Fine arts, Chennai. My work revolves around the entrance of a home—“the Doors”. For the past 18 years I have been painting on this theme. The concept “Doors” was for me to give the next generation what is disappearing from today’s world as well as to bring back memories for many. In this fast moving world, I was the past and the voices that echo in the rooms inspire me to paint the first vital aspect of a house-The Door.

Some of my doors open into an interior with tulsi tharas in the inner courtyards with milk cans, kerosene lamps, wooden boxes, clothes drying …faint white numbers and letters on the doors are clues about the inhabitants of those residences. The corporation numbers, ward numbers, electricity board connection numbers…

For instance, P26 indicates that polio drops were given to a child in the house under the immunization programme of the government.

Some of my closed doors with a huge lock show faded house numbers and painted advertisement. Through this I want to depict the lives of the people living behind these doors. Most of my doors are not from urbanized cities but from rural homes that I grew up watching every day.

Today, I paint more wooden, soot covered, kumkum and turmeric marking covered doors because they fascinate me more than the fancy stained glass doors. I believe “Each door has tale to narrate of the house, its owners and their lives. Even the exterior surface of the doors have myriad tales to narrate”.

Some of my works shows the treatment of side walls adjacent to the doors, appropriating the space as a canvas for the representation of popular culture. By recreating strong tactile feel of the old withered or dirty plastered walls, and its surface painted with imagery derived from popular culture as film posters of the 70s, the ubiquitous images of the goddesses from Ravi Verma’s calendar art…just to bring the memories of those childhood days.

- K. R. Santhana Krishnan