Digvijay Nikam
No matter where I was in the world, I would step outside with my paints and materials and paint as if I were touched by a force that gave me an inner realization of the reason for living. There was no one else around. Just the cold wind or warm breeze, the empty landscape and me. – Shibu Natesan
As a young kid when most children of his age chased butterflies and cats, or went around climbing trees and pilfering the neighbourhood mango groves, Shibu Natesan spent his time drawing images of butterflies, cats, cars, buses, and children on the mud walls that ran along private properties. His earliest artistic inspiration came from his father, Natesan, who was himself a painter and operated an atelier in the town which he later turned into a screen-printing studio. Shibu grew up in this atelier doing paintings on cardboard pieces using enamel paint as it was abundant in the studio, which is when his father recognised his talents and encouraged him further.
Born in 1966 in Trivandrum, Kerala, Shibu Natesan is a contemporary visual artist. He graduated from the College of Fine Arts in Trivandrum before completing his Masters in Printmaking from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. Later, in the mid-90s, he was an Artist in Residence at Rijksakademie Van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. Each of these phases shaped what was to become his distinctive style. Over the years he has had several solo exhibitions and group shows across India and abroad. Given his excellent performance, he was awarded a gold medal from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in 1991, and the “Uriot Prize’ from the Rijksakademie van Beeldande Kunsten in Amsterdam, in 1996.
Order of the Day. 2010. Oil on Canvas. Courtesy of 1×1.
Known for his realistic depiction and photographic precision in painting, Natesan belongs to a generation of artists from Kerala of the early eighties – a period of continuing change and rebellion against a bureaucratic and stultified art establishment. Natesan was immensely influenced by Latin American literature, cinema, and expressionist art. Later, he had an engagement with the work of the American artist R.B. Kitaj. Interestingly, given his stay in Baroda, the impact of Bhupen Khakhar is also visible in the narrative affinities of his paintings. In Amsterdam, he got interested in the art of the Belgian painter, Leon Spilliaert. Eventually the figurative art of the British painter David Hockney and the photo-real paintings of the German artist Gerhard Richter would come to refine his approach towards painting.
Saviour by Shibu Natesan. Courtesy of Indian art investor.
Natesan’s use of the photographic style is quite versatile and captivating for the viewer. In this painting titled Saviour, the figure diving forward gives a sense of an actual moment being photographed when looked from a distance. But when one gets closer, the painterly starts displacing the photographic, the human figures start losing their finesse and appear plastic, giving a strange yet sedate experience. The painting shifts and reorients our gaze in order to rethink our viewing. This dynamism of the ‘real’ is noticeable across many of his paintings.
For Natesan, the act of making a photograph is a “way of overcoming nostalgia for people and places left behind.” And therefore, as one critic argues, Natesan’s “artistic practice of using that photograph as the foundation of another form of art is to memorialize the past in a deeply personal way.”
Each One Teach One. 2007. Courtesy of saffronart.
Natesan’s hyper-realistic images refuse to be read directly and invite the viewer to make an interpretation. Often, his paintings involve juxtaposing seemingly unrelated elements to provoke the viewer’s interest and subsequent questioning of their values. In his piece titled “Each One Teach One”, he combines images of Zebras in the wild with the figure of a boxer ready to fight. Natesan says that it is intended as “a comment on the violent nature of the human psyche. It is also a reflection of current world affairs. The boxer lunges out hopelessly at the zebras, which could or could not be real. He will never make contact with his target… This is a frozen moment in a nightmare – the kind where you find yourself impotent, your actions without affect.”
Tagore. 2004. Watercolour on paper. Courtesy of Artiana.
Natesan’s oeuvre, in addition to his photorealistic paintings, consists of numerous still life paintings as well as portraits and self-portraits. His latest body of works includes paintings of landscapes. Inspired by the French painters of Barbizon, he says, “I am a plein air painter and the visions of landscape painting help me talk to my present, and also shows me how to really listen to the land I’m looking at and absorbing in all its beauty and wholesome details, anywhere in the world.” Natesan’s landscapes have the feel of impressionists of early years, but the setting is both Indian as well as European. Most of his landscapes are devoid of human presence and even when a solitary figure or a couple make an appearance, they carry about them an aura of melancholy, an oceanic inwardness which is a distinct feature of almost all his human figures.
Hampstead Heath, London, 2018. Watercolour on paper. Courtesy of Grosvenor Gallery.
At a time when image making practices have advanced so far, Shibu Natesan’s artistic practice questions our perception of reality and shows us the limits of our perpetual quest to capture it in a form. Conjuring surreal and dream-like images from an eclectic array of sources, Natesan highlights the possibilities of intermingling two art forms – photography and painting – and creating something exceptionally striking.
An exhibition titled Shibu Natesan: Plein Air Views of India and London is currently being exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery, London.
References
- https://jnaf.org/artist/shibu-natesan/
- https://www.saffronart.com/artists/shibu-natesan
- https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4777691
- https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/HY993Ssg5hD9ihf5AewNTM/Shibu-Natesan–Stranger-than-reality.html
- https://www.grosvenorgallery.com/exhibitions/348-shibu-natesan-plein-air-views-of-india-and-london/press_release_text/
- https://gallerydotwalk.com/artist/54/Shibu-Natesan
- https://criticalcollective.in/ArtistInner2.aspx?Aid=121&Eid=53
- https://www.saffronart.com/auctions/postwork.aspx?l=2794
