Sunil Ashokapuram is an active presence in various ways of film writing. It’s different among cartoonists. The author, who is also an art critic, writes about the painting of Sunil Ashokapuram.
It is a hot topic whether the outline/construction has a separate and independent existence apart from the idea, concept, literary form or other source from which it was constructed. Although they may have visual value and other potential, the general criticism is that some limitations are natural in that they follow or exist on a work, concept, idea, or source, and do not otherwise exist as an independent art form. .
Although this is somewhat true of Kerala’s old sketching art scene, it can be seen that today it has hoped to renew itself in many ways. Therefore, we must reject such criticism. I mean, it’s been a long time since he started showing characteristics close to the painting field. Nor is it accidental through the application of line or color alone; On the contrary, it is through various factors such as appearance, posture, visual angle (Framing), posture, composition and treatment.
Despite the above criticisms of the past regarding the independent existence of cartoonists and cartoons, MV Devan and AS Nair and Vasudevan Namboothira will be CN Hanes is Karunakaran and others. On closer inspection, there are other reasons for this. However, it is a fact that those who came in after that time had to make a hard effort to break away from the generation named. This is because, no matter how creatively you travel, there is a possibility that some kind of influence from the preceding artists above is hidden somewhere in the content of the line and the painting.
Illustration by Sunil Ashokapuram
As it continued like an epidemic, in a sense, it was a difficult challenge to rule them all out. At the same time, such solid decisions and initiatives brought the new generation of cartooning to a more independent land later; Perhaps, assuming that what called time has happened. It can be said that the contemporary modern art scenes, the techniques and the growing visual awareness have enabled them well.
In other words, modern and postmodern techniques and observation and other interventions have been strengthened in the art world itself to break away from the traditional method. Growth of new socio-cultural fields, careful political awareness, appreciation of art/artistic awareness that even the common people have gained over time, the increase in exhibition spaces, market potential, explosion of print and digital media, availability of other types of new media fields, and the opportunities it brings are all factors that help the artist move towards freedom and more energetic discovery.
We have to take it from this background to understand the artist Sunil Ashokapuram. Indeed, Sunil is one of the most popular new generation of cartoonists today and has blazed an independent trail. However, what enabled Sunil to venture into creative painting alongside his work in sketching is certainly the view that the two are not mutually exclusive fields. It should be known that Sunil found his creative world of painting as an extension of his own drawing efforts.
Speaking of illustration – it is a fact that his sketches are given independent ground due to care / variety rather than suitability to the subject / story / idea or not. They maintain such an imaginative/expressive line color combination. In other words, this is a painting typical of modern artists. At first glance the lines have a nice flow but at other times, depending on the context, they evolve into very sharp edges. Most of Sunil’s cartoons in the contemporary media seem to try to be different from the traditional generation methods mentioned above. One of them is that colorful arrangement.
That’s why each of them gets some kind of painting character. That is what he prefers to the systematic black/white binary in outline/drawing. But most of the time there is a great fondness for black and its various shades; This is because this variety of color / flavor helps the artist enough to hide some things without revealing everything. New artists may be abandoning traditional wedding traditions. One of them can be seen in this type of care.
Apart from that, silhouette is another technique that Sunil uses constantly in his paintings. Whether it’s a certain emotional state/mood (perhaps that spooky mood that always lingers in every frame/canvas, knowingly or unknowingly), or shrouded in darkness, giving a nice sense of mystery to the viewer that builds on expectation. It is meaningful and interesting enough to voice the inner conflict of the main characters or characters, and sometimes the environment around them. Beneath it, sadness, anger, anxiety, and love swell with the natural active presence of human beings.
At times, he is lonely and dreamily whimpering. There is no such thing as a rural-urban experience difference. There is also a context where the vast landscape, full of grooves, can sometimes seem paradoxically very violent. Meanwhile, we often meet people whose faces and eyes have lost their expressions while staring deeply at each other; Groups of people who exist unconditionally, who are oblivious to their own duty or representation. They are places where the tensions of the new age are subtly hidden by layers of natural meaning; But then, realism, imagination, and tactile presence combined harmoniously.
Overall, we can easily see a kind of expressive nature in most of Sunil’s pictures. It has already been mentioned that his painting/painting methods should be looked at as a continuation of the sketching system that is currently being implemented; Especially in terms of preparation etc. in terms of color and other elements; And vice versa, it works that way.
As such, they can be seen to become more expressive than merely narrative. However, here the artist tries to be the eye of a strong, alert socio-political person who does not shrink into the stereotype of self-repetition. In this way, Sunil cleverly recovers all kinds of political concerns and interest that are lost in sketching, knowingly or unknowingly. However, it’s the honest hand-on-chest interaction that makes these films so relatable.
Although it may appear on the surface that they are not quite suitable, the artist presents people, trees, etc. through the presence of harsh color in a way that breaks their own natural levels of meaning or otherwise conflicts. It can only be said that it is a new application of the convergent potential of contradictions. Creative art that moves naturally from the sketch through the needlepoint to the complex world of color palettes, without the burden of just forming a design.
Apparently Sunil’s favorite color is green. Blue also conveniently comes in between. Systematic ideas of color are subverted here in several places. The authenticity, or mastery, is the use of the same color to enliven but create the mystery of the dark. When the green-blue colors mentioned above in nature/landscape photos fill it, the softness of humans and other creatures captured in it completely replaces the natural warmth of the colors.
A kind of paradox then occurs. Sometimes flowing tapes of color and rough surfaces can be seen at the same time in the same frame. A single image/body/swaroop (Image/Figure) is generally present, but the frame blends well with the colors of the surrounding areas. Sunil tries to make the posture of the figures very different in each frame.
Rather than being a radical discovery of self-experience, the natural and unique local life of Kozhikode or Malabar is used as a means of generalization to represent everywhere and everything, knowingly or unknowingly. All of them appear to have been acquired during a leisurely stroll, but there are subtle signs that the artist was willing to delve into the interior of the scene.
A single tree, a lone human figure, a dark street shrouded in mystery, a sky or bird’s eye view of a busy market, a market stall, street vendors, a remote rural landscape, a shadow/silhouette of a human figure appearing through a sharp light shining into a dark room frames We can see how effortlessly Sunil draws.
The essence of it all becomes an experience in such a way that one forgets to see the immense work of the artist behind it. Sunil often prepares his frame in a very abstract manner without sticking to the real. Perhaps this stems from an assumption that there is no need to maintain linguistic-stylistic coercion by an artist who aspires to freedom, and that this is also a good thing. He is so clever that he creates designs that give innovation in various ways to the design (Layout, Page layout) of the weekly or magazine.
Such experimental endeavors also set this artist apart. There we encounter a masterful use of pictorial space. The artistic magic of placing just a few shapes and images and then thinning out the coarse line-color texture of colors. An extraordinary style of the human figure was one that fascinated the young artists of the nineties; Although the experiments on male figures have faced a lot of criticism. He was mainly influenced by the expressionist and post-impressionist art styles of European art.
There is no need to hide the fact that they were very repetitive when they were full of all the paintings and sculptures of that period, at least in some places. Kerala artists had to struggle a lot to overcome them. Since then Sunil has modified that figure system with something elegant of his own; At the same time, by juxtaposing forms of human experience in contemporary art. Art should always progress by traveling itself through time and new experiences through various artists, and here in the artist Sunil, whether in sketching or in the world of creative painting, it happens skillfully, aesthetically and meaningfully.
#Outline #Color #Madhyamam
