Valsan Kollery
sketches teenage girl, says bad art is one way to excel
Hyderabad,
Jan 9: With a typically free-spirited mind, sculptor Valsan Koorma Kollery
engaged his audience with wisecracks and simple tips on broad aesthetics about
painting, thereby entertaining students as much as educating them in a city far
from his native Kerala.
At
the ongoing Krishnakriti Festival of Arts and Culture here, the sexagenarian
known for his jovially rebellious approach to almost everything around gave a
brief introductory lecture ahead of choosing an early-teenage girl as his muse
for a charcoal sketch that won loud appreciation from 100-odd young enthusiasts
who gathered at Centre for Cultural
Resources and Training in Madhapur.
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| Sculptor - Valsan Kolleri drawing a portrait of a teenage girl |
“Take all your shyness away. Inhibition
is what blocks creativity. Just sketch or paint or whatever. It may be bad art,
but then there is no short cut to excelling oneself in any field,” he told a 75-minute
workshop on Friday evening as part of the January 7-10 Krishnakriti2016
featuring a range of cultural events.
North Malabar-born Valsan, 62, who joined
Government College of Fine Arts in Chennai way back in 1971, said one could be
initiated into art at any age. “You can start it even after retirement from
your job. It can be a very good second nursery,” he said, minutes before randomly
asking a girl from the crowd to pose for a portrait. “Well, a small work is
also a big work.”
Valsan, who misses no chance to ridicule
set notions and methodical training in art, said it’s the blind who often sense
art better that those with eyesight. “Years ago, I brought visually-challenged
people to an art exhibition of mine in Madras University. In a 3,000-square
feet area, they stood in rapt attention, feeling each of the 35 artworks in
their own way,” recalled the native of Patiam in Kannur district, who did his
advanced art studies from France (ENSBA, Paris) and Gujarat (MS University,
Baroda).
Open-mindedness
is what is essential to art, he added, saying this holds relevant to any area
of culture. “For instance, you need no music to dance. You can dance to the
colour around, to the fall of the rains, to an inspiring object you come
across....”
While
sketching on paper the picture of 13-year-old K. Bhavya Manasa, he leisurely
asked the class-8 student of Jubilee Hill Public School to store small little
artworks one does on and off. “You know why? When you feel like crying
sometimes—as well all do—just go back and take a look at them. It can make you
happy, isn’t it?”
The
sketching, during which Valsan said “I can trace the face of your mother,
grandma and great-grandmother if you give me time”, was finally presented to
the gathering when the artist deliberately held the paper upside down as he
lifted it for all to see.
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| Sulptor - Valsan Kolleri |
Arti
Nagpal, a housewife who occasionally paints, told Valsan that his workshop had
now inspired her to return to her habit of sketching. “Suddenly, I realise I
miss it a lot,” the young lady said, clicking a selfie with the guest
artist—the only one to figure in both editions of Kochi-Muziris Biennale (held
in 2012 and ’14) by far.
Bengali
Priyanka Das, who is doing masters in fine arts from University of Hyderabad,
simultaneously sketched Valsan and showed her work to the artist. An
appreciative Valsan drew another sketch of his on the left page of the book in
return.
Later,
at an interaction with art scholar Dhritabrata Bhattacharjya Tato, Valsan spoke
about his mid-career shift from bronze to stone as the medium of sculpting. “We
can make any place beautiful with right use of art,” he said, sharing his
experience of building butterfly parks off Thrissur town and close to Nilambur
forests in Kerala.
The
artist also his second tryst at India’s only biennale—in Kochi, where virtually churned out a quiet island of creative space
that retained the site’s rustic greenery, thus tacitly asking the new-age
visitor to return to nature.
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