r e v i e w

An exhibition of paintings by Sebastian Varghese and Leon K.L. will open at Gallery Threshold , New Delhi from January 29 to February 18, 2009. 

Tanya Abraham previews the show.

matters of arts web site - January 2009

Works of both artists included in this show explore different facets of plant life, of vegetation. The imageries of both originate from their immediate environments, from a sensitive awareness of the surroundings and a feeling of the necessity to connect with the world around.

Sebastian's water colours explore an intricate world of flora, mostly the pernicious weeds and even the carnivorous plants. His works are essentially a series of paintings exploring the hyacinth covered water-masses in the peripheries of a growing urban landscape.

Leon 's soft pastels also depict diverse forms of plant life, almost emulating the microscopically detailed botanical studies. Certain lasciviousness is present in his imagery consisting life forms emerging out of earth, mainly those of the underground tubers and roots.

Earth Beneath, the theme of the upcoming show at Threshold Gallery, New Delhi starting the 28 th of January 2009, portrays objects leaning toward tangible, emotional and structural nuances. K L Leon and Sebastian Varghese, within their respective styles and perceptions delves into the concept, thus relating not only to the earth, soil or that which connects to both of these, but to each other and themselves as well.

The theme is blatant, as it mentions; of the soil, nature and the universe. Of things natural and of nature. From this, each of the artists have twisted or tuned the subject to juxtapose their thinking patterns.

KL Leon as has been his recent subject uses the ‘yam' as the object of display through which he has depicted the inner details of emotion. The yam is highly ‘earthy' in nature, and the intricacy the vegetable suffices explains the detailing within the universe and the nature around. These intricacies have been resounded in his works [Leon uses pastel as a medium], not just in the detailing of the vegetable alone but also in the use of colours and the background, for example- that which absorbs a certain quality of strength which the artist's skill portrays. The brown hues, the roughness or even the solidness of yam is pictured in detail. The artist thus explains this as a visual depiction of the existence of a universe that is beyond comprehension. He explains this through a germinating seed [the golden yellow suppleness] that arises in utmost calmness; the beauty of birth, the origin of life. K L Leon believes that yam as a product of the earth is an embodiment of life itself- the fullness that he relates to a pregnant woman.

Moving into newer concepts, he in his works titled ‘Incisions', portrays the deep detailing of life within (it allows us to understand that such are the details, man cannot comprehend them). This he relates to the destruction that has begun to occur through mankind's selfish desires (he uses metaphors, symbols such as an arrow, for example). It pierces the existence of life; it depletes the essence of life. Yet we are made to believe through his works that such is the vastness of creation that it moulds and remoulds at various angles. There exists a spiritual point here that cannot be contained in our minds alone. But, it with expansion will expand our consciousness as well through which answers would be found.

Sebastian touches similar areas. A staunch lover of his surroundings, he uses images of Kerala to depict earth in its most natural form in watercolour. Alluvial or paddy-elaborate and close depictions of which, explains the purity of nature. Sebastian believes there exists nothing called man-made, ‘for all things return to the earth finally.' Even his depiction of objects such as syringes, material waste would in time return to the soil. He exalts the presence and strength of nature explaining that the earth beneath is limitless, there is no fixation to the subject in particular. In his ‘Tools and Relics', Sebastian moves through his painting in layers, offering a primordial existence at the first layer, which gradually moves to the now. He traces truth, that which starts in its true form and finally moves to an existence tainted with the current. He tells of the engulfing of emotion, the need for the material, which, however, remains as obstructions to that which is natural. In ‘Conservatory', he mocks at the process of conservation, he reveals the truth behind the nature of it: An uncanny desire that mocks the natural, truthful existence of life. There exists nothing that is conserved, he seems to ridicule man's attempt to preserve- for everything must decay, everything become earth. To Sebastian, life itself is that which is beneath the earth. The vastness of it, the detailing of it, even the accumulation of it disintegrates into nothingness, into the earth, which in truth is the only form of existence. However, it allows us to ponder if even this is a mirage, for in the meaning of eternity, is the earth a speck of dust, of which we are of.

Earth Beneath 
K.L. Leon and Sebastian Varghese
January 29 – February 18, 2009
Gallery Threshold, New Delhi