ART AND CULTURE

Documenting the everyday life of an artist through bricks

artist-unnikrishnan Artist Unnikrishnan

Unnikrishnan C., 26, will hold his first international exhibition in Switzerland from March 9 to 12. From a small village called Nenmara in Kerala, he has come a long way. He was born to a family of daily wage earners; his parents used to work in a stone quarry. He loved art from a young age. When he couldn’t afford paint, he used to make his own colours, by grinding and mixing various things like hibiscus flowers and tamarind seed powder.

“I completed my studies only so that I could go to a fine arts college,” he says. “Otherwise, I would have become a daily wage earner like my parents.” While he was studying in Thrissur Fine Arts College, he started documenting his life through images painted on bricks. His house was a brick house, and his love affair with bricks started when he was very young. “I share a sort of intimacy with each brick on the walls of my room,” he says. “The way some people speak to gods in the form of stones, I used to talk to bricks”.

Brick Wall became the title of his first exhibition at the 2014 Kochi-Muziris Biennale. The organisers had seen his work while he was in his 4th year of college and selected it for the biennale; he was one of the youngest artists there.

One of the recurring themes in his art is his family, which consists of father, mother, brother, sister and grandmother. “When I was growing up, my parents did not give me much attention,” he says. “They were too busy worrying about how to meet the day-to-day expenses. I think that helped me in a way. It taught me how to be self-sufficient.”

I ask him what they thought about him becoming an artist. “Neither of them knows how to read or write. So, they had no clue about what being an artist meant. They could not offer me any advice or guidance. But they never tried to impose their wishes on me. They gave me the freedom to do what I wanted. Sometimes in the night, they used to watch me while I drew. They were quite fascinated by my works.”

After the biennale, he held an exhibition at the Sharjah Biennale Foundation, and later in GallerySKE in Delhi. There, art collectors Richard and Adrienne Blum of Zug, Switzerland, saw his work. They offered to support him for two years to create a body of work which they could show at a solo exhibition in Zug.

In the artworks he’ll show there, he’s slightly shifted his style. Along with other works, he’ll be showcasing traditional designs woven into mats made of palm and coconut tree leaves. “These are designs that my mother taught me,” he says. “Unfortunately, with each generation, we’re slowly losing this knowledge, from my grandmother to my mother to me. I want to try and preserve this in the form of art.” He says there’s a lot of emotion and nostalgia attached to what he’s exhibiting in Switzerland.

And what does he think of the breathtaking beauty that Switzerland is famous for? “I haven’t gone out yet,” he laughs. “It’s freezing here. I feel like I’m inside a refrigerator.”