Parvathi Nayar: Recounting her 'passages' through art<\/p>\n
Carla Bianpoen
\nContributor
\nJakarta<\/p>\n
Parvathi Nayar's monograph Passages is as exceptional as the
\nartist herself: a contemporary thinker, someone dubbed a new-Asia
\nwoman and an artist of the Renaissance generation.<\/p>\n
A permanent resident of Singapore and a full-time arts
\ncorrespondent for Singapore's Business Times, Parvathi also used
\nto be a freelance contributor for The Jakarta Post and editor for
\nthe arts section of the now defunct Indonesian Observer during a
\nthree-year stay in the mid-1990s.<\/p>\n
A publication of the multitalented artist herself and launched
\nin late July in Singapore, it received support from such
\nrespected foundations like the Lee Foundation, The Shaw
\nFoundation, as well as Asia Pacific Breweries, Citibank and Swift
\n& Seagull. In recognition of her roots and the undertaking of the
\nAsian Civilizations Museum, she donated all the proceeds of the
\nbook sales at the launching event to charities in her native
\nKerala.<\/p>\n
Previous assignments have included writing for the Arts
\nMagazine, The Asian Arts News, Asia Times. She has been
\nan art instructor at the Design School, Temasek Polytechnic,
\nSingapore and was a freelance illustrator for advertising
\nagencies, books and magazine publishers and an animation company
\nas well, she was also art director and visualizer at J. Walter
\nThomson, Madras, India.<\/p>\n
She was a member of the Writers' Lab, Theatre Works, Singapore
\nwhere she authored the play Cards, performed at the Jubilee Hall
\nand Lab Report 6, Singapore. Her short story Spaces between
\nRaindrops was published in the creative anthology Don't Judge a
\nBook by Its Cover (2003). The Australian High Commission selected
\nher as the Singapore journalist sent to the Olympics Arts
\nFestival in Sydney.<\/p>\n
Still, between her full-time journalistic commitments, she
\nmanages to be an artist of class, exhibiting works as if being an
\nartist was her main engagement -- and also publishing this
\nfascinating book single-handedly.<\/p>\n
The publication comes when Parvathi is about to enter a new
\nphase in her life. In early September she will leave for London
\nto pursue a master's degree in Fine Arts at Central Saint
\nMartin's University on a scholarship from the British government.<\/p>\n
At this point in her life, Parvathi realized she needed to
\nmake a record of the passages that had shaped her art, and
\nherself, between 1985 and 2003.<\/p>\n
Taking stock of Parvathi's artistic development, the monograph
\nshows how the flow of her art was closely intertwined and
\ninterwoven with her path of womanhood.<\/p>\n
Building up her skills from the mastery of sketching to pen
\nand ink, to watercolors, and oils and acrylic, she had a solid
\nbase to start experimenting in mixed media, and create images
\nthat evoke a sense of a new apocalypse.<\/p>\n
Stirring and with heightening simultaneous sensations, her
\nhighly textured and multilayered canvases are filled with unusual
\ndynamics. Appearing like cracks or shades, the texture and the
\nlayering put an accent on the artist's intent, be it the creases
\nof a woman's worn-out face, or the energy she wants her images to
\nportray.<\/p>\n
In fact it is feeling and the deeper emotions that she
\ncaptures so well, revealing the spirit of her inner life.<\/p>\n
It is no surprise then that most of her images capture the
\nspirit of women in a blend of the realistic and the philosophic,
\nthe traditional and the contemporary, as well as the matter of
\nfact and visionary. While there are also depictions of the male,
\nthey take a minor part in the collection, and do not stir the
\nemotions as most of her mixed media works.<\/p>\n
\"I saw the essence of women as elemental,\" she says in
\npresenting her series of works called Elements. \"She is
\nuntrammeled as the wind, grounded priestess of the hearth, the
\nsupplicator before the Sea Mother, the shape changer like water,
\na giver and a taker, a metaphor for creativity and creation.\"<\/p>\n
As is the case with her other series, Parvathi stretched the
\nline of her initial ponderings on the separate elements -- fire,
\nair, ether, earth -- which were visualized in fascinating vistas
\nof imagery (each mixed media on paper measuring 79 x 111 cm), to
\nthe female face expressing the different essence of the elements
\n(mixed media 59 x 40 cm).<\/p>\n
Women also are the metaphors in her fascinating series titled
\nTime Cycles: The Book of Hours. Musing on the spirituality of the
\ncycles of time, and exploring its cyclical nature of time,
\nParvathi denotes the cycles by the energy of a woman awakening
\nfrom a deep sleep at pre-dawn, rising to sunrise and on to day,
\nand adjusting the mood at noon, afternoon, evening, sunset,
\nnighttime and midnight.<\/p>\n
Radiating colors accentuate the technique that makes the women
\nappear as if seen in an illusion or through the curtain of a
\ndownpour. Lyrical, the images are like from the Book of
\nRevelations, stirring and striking the finest chords of the soul.<\/p>\n
As Parvathi proceeds on her path toward excellence, widening
\nher horizons far from her roots, the sting of the salty sea winds
\nin Kerala, where she was born, returns in her memory now and
\nagain. The stories, myths and legends, as well as life's
\nrealities have made a lasting imprint on her.<\/p>\n
Again, it is women that she is reminded of when turning to her
\nchildhood games and the measurement of time by the blink of the
\neye used in ancient India. Musing over the Indian notions of time
\nbrought her to the mingling with Western ideas of games and game
\ntheory.<\/p>\n
This again blended with the way art has looked at the body and
\ninscriptions that can be borne by the body, she contends.
\nParvathi made seven paintings in which the female body is painted
\nboth as player and observer, but gives the impression of possible
\nvictims at the blink of an eye. Is she hinting at the games
\nplayed with women in the times of old, a situation that has not
\nchanged in modern times?<\/p>\n
Vipala (mixed media on paper, 111 x 79 cm), depicting a female
\nbody in a prone position, and the traces of feet in the upper
\nhalf of the canvas, with two penetrating eyes in the lower part,
\nsays it all.<\/p>\n
The influences of her original culture remain, spurring to
\nreinvent the images of her youth and popping up throughout her
\ncontemporary works. That the female takes a central place is
\nhardly surprising, although Ganesha, the auspicious epitome of
\nHindu culture also takes a major place.<\/p>\n
Whether in the pen and ink drawings of women with their
\nbeautiful, intricately designed decorations, or in the series on
\nelements, or in earthen pots that present women as a giver and
\nsustainer of life -- or in any of the paintings she made as a
\nseries -- they imply Parvathi's thoughts and views on woman. They
\nevolve from the traditional Indian conditions which, redefined to
\nthe universal context, result in a new model of today's woman,
\nand one who brings along a touch of her local culture.<\/p>\n
In this sense, Parvathi's paintings render a new significance
\nand a particular contribution to alternative interpretations of
\nworld art, a term which used to be laden with art values imposed
\nby certain groups and is now being questioned by thinkers and
\ninnovators who wish to redefine the understanding of the term.<\/p>\n
Parvathi is poised to proceed, and not let herself be left
\nstuck in one or the other concepts. Experimenting is the key
\nword, and experiment she does, with success. As the series of
\nTime Cycles had reached its fulfillment, she thought of a joint
\ninstallation on the same theme but with various mediums. And so
\nJames Speck made animation based on Parvathi's paintings, and
\nChristine Tan took one of the series for her romantic film.<\/p>\n
She also exhibited together with photographer and poet Jason
\nWee, presenting the Western zodiac that she had researched and
\nreinterpreted from a personal perspective, while Jason Wee
\nexplored the Chinese zodiac.<\/p>\n
While Passages explores the development of Parvathi's art, it
\nis in fact an exploration of her own passage through life,
\nperhaps a search for identity as unfolded in her series titled
\nNarcissus. Her \"becoming\", both personal and artistic, marks the
\nimportance of this period 1989-2003.<\/p>\n
The ground was laid in Kerala, where she was born in 1964.
\nWith a mother and grandmother who practiced painting as a hobby,
\nshe was familiar with the canvas early on in life. Her arts
\neducation at the University of Tamil Nadu's Stella Maris College
\n(1982) already indicated her talents. Ranking first in the
\nuniversity, she received her B.A. in Fine Arts with distinction.<\/p>\n
There wasn't any doubt that she would be an artist. After
\napprenticing in the studio of Professor T. Vishwanathan of the
\nGovernment School of Arts in Madras (1985) she set out to perfect
\nher skills by taking a refresher art course at Nanyang Academy of
\nFine Arts, as well as a course in painting in watercolors from
\nSingapore's leading watercolor expert Ong Kim Seng at the
\nNational University of Singapore.<\/p>\n
She also did figure drawing at the La Salle School of Art, and
\nin Indonesia, where she worked during three years, doing life
\ndrawing at the studio of leading artist Teguh Ostenrik.<\/p>\n
How she fares after this will probably be revealed in another
\nmonograph. For now, this publication is enrichment for the art
\nscene, not only in Singapore, where Parvathi is a permanent
\nresident, but also for neighboring countries like Indonesia.<\/p>\n
With an excellent professional introduction by noted art
\nhistorian TK Sabapathy, and text from other noted names in the
\ncircles of visual arts, it is full of compelling pictures (151
\npages with 300 plates), as well as the artist's remarks on
\nmediums and creative processes, a compelling layout and dynamic-
\nrendering fonts.<\/p>\n
The monograph is more than just a documentation of the
\nartist's works, but a valuable art book, giving insights in the
\nsignificance of mediums, and the auspicious process of genuine
\nart-making.<\/p>\n
Passages will be available at QB World Art at QB bookstores,
\nand at QB World Art book corner at CP Biennale, Galeri Nasional
\nJakarta, during the month of September.<\/p>",
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