An image begins with a dot. A bindu. So too, much of the observed world. An atom, a molecule, a pixel, a nano-particle. One centre, one core, that suggests infinite multi-centres. From that seed, a cosmos imagines itself into being.
The core throbs, pulsates, explodes. A big bang. Universes are born, expanding into space in every direction. A gigantic ripple in the void, progressing and amplifying in cyclic and radial waves.
It is a universe of undefined boundaries and borders where every energy bleeds and merges and overlaps and is absorbed by the other. Margin here is a fuzzy idea, as each margin can, in turn, emerge as a new centre. Concentric forces move centrifugally and centripetally. The blaze at the core oscillates like a fireball. Aditya hrudayam. The nuclear sun. Is it a presence or an absence? Is it solid or liquid or gaseous? Is it an unimaginably dense black hole or is it an entirely porous emptiness? Is the idea of the centre a necessary axial or is it an amorphous abstraction that ceaselessly swallows space and time?
From the abstract core to more metaphorical ones of human nature, of society, of the engine of history, of social resistance. In either space, it evokes the tension between stability and change. The centre is ever falling apart, to reconstitute itself all anew in a constant eddy of forming and un-forming. The flux is constant. Even the slightest perspectival shift conjures up entirely new planes of vision and perception. The change can be both subtle and dramatic.
The idea of the ‘core’ here, also suggests where the artist has arrived at. After some years of exploring the figurative, the narrative, the flat geometric, the installed and so on, Pravin Kannanur has now come up with a body of work that seems to reflect his own core. Like a musician discovering the sthayee bhava of a raga, this artist has landed on a style and a working method which enables him to pull away from the banality of the flat surface to a more nuanced expression of textures, layers, depths.
Blocking resistive areas with masking tapes and other devices, the artist prepares his canvas on the floor. Paint containers in hand, he moves around it pensively, in a manner reminiscent of Pollock, splashing, squeezing, dripping, dribbling paint over multiple excursions of physical gestures which, then, also extends to raking, spreading, wiping or lifting the corners of the canvas to create flow-paths for the liquid paint. It is an equal mix of the deliberate and the accidental. The act of colouring also assumes a visceral dimension, approximating a staccato choreography of hand, leg and torso positions. The artist, as much as the viewer, is quickly sucked into the turbulent vortex.
The end result is well articulated. It travels beyond abstract expressionism as it sets about training the viewer’s eyes to pare down to the core, layer by layer. It makes no claims to any deep significance. On the contrary, it appeals to the experiential, asking us to align our vision to the palpable rhythms on the canvas, which should help us in diving below the surface to connect with the ebb and flow of the ceaseless dance of humanity.
Pravin is a conscious artist who has encircled himself in his own metier. The circular/the radial/ the cyclical is an algorithm of a major transition to a fresh quest.