Gaze that lures

People say that eyes in a painting always seem to stare at you. More than staring, the pairs of eyes here lure you and make you gaze at them in a very poignant manner. They seem to convey something but you are not sure. Next to them is a small placard that gives you a little more information about the painting through poetic lines.

She is a young artist, based in Coimbatore, whose paintings were on display at Maison Perumal for a month from 28 December 2013. Jitha Karthikeyan’s paintings were about people who had nothing extraordinary about them but whose thoughts and dreams had been ignored and were never given a chance to come true. It included portraits of a child labour and of an unemployed looking at the brighter side. It also had portraits of migrant workers with their little gunny sacks unsure of where and how their life in a different land would be. All these paintings are based on real people whom she have met or come across in her journies. What’s common among these paintings are all of them have an alluring piercing gaze.

One portrait titled ‘Ghost Workers’ was about a migrant worker who had worked hard and had built the house in which the artist resides. The artist was happy to see he was hard-working but his whereabouts were unknown. He had vanished without a trace. Another painting titled ‘Unreserved Third Class’ was painted to show that women were at a risk in the lonely compartments of the train. Being based on a personal experience, it has so many men ogling with their wide eyes in one direction. And the description for the painting reads

“Woman. Alone. Trying to get back home.

Stare all you want. Strip me with your thoughts.

I’m sitting right here. Till my destination.”

[soliloquy id=”1592″]

Photos: Sooganya N and Sunitha Devi S

Sunitha Devi S.

1st, M.A. Mass Communication

You may also like...

Leave a Reply