First Take 2021 Jury: Metaphor in motion with the sculptures of KS Radhakrishnan

There is movement, metaphor, and meaning to be found in the sculptures of KS Radhakrishnan, a doyen of Indian sculpture for more than four decades, and one of the most significant figures in contemporary Indian art. He is noted as a member of the new generation of sculptors, who has successfully brought about a definitive resurgence in Indian sculpture, creating forms that are imbued with passion, balance and joy.

While Radhakrishnan has experience with alternate sculpting mediums over the years — including beeswax and Plaster of Paris — his practice has remained rooted largely in bronze, which he has cited to be a highly technical but also intensely rewarding medium, one whose depths he continues to plumb as part of what he deems an “inclusive practice”.

Primarily, anthropomorphic archetypes make their presence felt in his figurative artworks, with pieces ranging widely in scale — interestingly, Radhakrishnan has in a past interview attributed the expressiveness of his figures to the example of his father, who wished to be an actor and instilled in his son a passion for the potency of ritual dances and performances. And following on this inspiration, Radhakrishnan is known to create distinctive thinly fluted and tall figures and figurines that are often depicted mid-dance, connecting to an inner desire of lithely leaping up in a surge of emotion.

Radhakrishnan was born in Kerala’s Kottayam district in 1956. But his artistic training began formally and in earnest around 1973-74, when he went to Shantiniketan and enrolled in the Kala Bhavan of Vishwabharati University (after completing his under-graduation from Changanacherry). Definitively, here he was mentored by two extremely notable names in the sphere of Indian modern art, Ramkinkar Baij and Sarbari Roy Choudhury. While Baij is one of the most widely-respected pioneers of modern Indian sculpture, Roy Chowdhury is another great in the sector, who uniquely found his inspiration in Hindustani classical music to create a synesthetic oeuvre. Under the aegis of such teachers, Radhakrishnan finished his MFA in 1981 and then went on to garner innumerable plaudits. In fact, even in his formative years, his sculptural talents were acknowledged at a very young age, when he was awarded with the National Scholarship offered by Government of India in 1978. As he went out into the world as a practicing sculptor, he hosted numerous solo shows at prestigious locations, including at the National Gallery of Modern Art (Bengaluru), Centre des Bords de Marne, LePerreux-Brysur-Marne (France), Lalit Kala Akademi (New Delhi), and Birla Academy of Art and Culture (Kolkata), besides others.

From the ’80s onwards, Radhakrishnan also installed several open air sculptures across the country and abroad, including ‘Bahuroopi’ at Kottayam in 2016, ‘Musui on the Portal’ at Panjim, Goa in 2017, and others at the TMI Foundation, Cotignac, France and India House, London. His group shows have taken place across major Indian cities, as well as international locations including France and China. Further, Radhakrishnan has also curated the exhibition, Ramkinkar Baij – A Retrospective at NGMA in New Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai, besides authoring a book titled Ramkinkar’s Yaksha Yakshi, released during this retrospective event.

The male and female figures Maiya and Musui, said to represent the anima-animus, are a prominent and frequently acknowledged motif in his artworks, although he has professed that this “male-female binary is not oppositional” — rather, it goes on to “emphasise mutuality in all aspects of a secular life and art”.

In an interesting anecdote, Radhakrishnan is said to have met an 18-year-old Santhal boy, Musui, asking for alms, when the artist was studying in Santiniketan around 1970. He has professed in an earlier interview that the “unusual peace and smile” on the youth’s face struck him deeply, and he made a portrait of the beautiful youth. This image — this smile — went on to become the Musui of many of his sculptures, balanced out with Maiya, making art of the soul that plumbs much deeper than a simple anthropomorphic presentation.

Radhakrishnan’s compositions have been appreciated as “exquisitely crafted” as well as making “exceptionally canny use of free space”. Ultimately, the artist has admitted to juxtaposing “object-meaning-space with interpretative possibilities”, creating intimate and light yet impactful and larger-than-life pieces, which are imbued with memory, experience, dynamism, character and infinite stories.