The slender figures of Indian master P. Perumal inhabit a spare, rural existence, a rough-hewn landscape mirrored in the ragged impasto of his brushstrokes. Having spent his formative years in a village, Perumal’s paintings celebrate the earthiness of village life in Tamil Nadu. Here are communal scenes of dance and music, the celebration of a wedding, and outpourings of religious fervour through imaginary visitations by Buddha and Christ. Then there are his travellers: villagers walking barefoot for miles for water, to the market, a neighbouring village perhaps with migratory, unidirectional purposefulness. Despite the obvious hubbub of activity, Perumal’s mute characters and ascetic rendering lend his paintings an air of ennobled quietude, as if the volume switch had been turned all the way down. Each masterpiece is a haunting evocation, wherein the artist’s singular stylizations articulate the soul of a land and its people.

About the artist: Born in 1935, Perumal was a National Scholar in Drawing and Painting (1962–1964). He served as a Fellow of the State Lalit Kala Academy (1995), and was awarded a Gold Medal (1998) at a programme by the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya, Bhopal. His works are part of private and institutional collections in South Korea, Italy, the USA, Germany and Canada.

-Utterly Art

Image: © P. Perumal
Courtesy of the artist and Utterly Art