Artist Shibu Chand’s exhibition “Text/Context” highlights dominant discomforts and disappearances

Artist Shibu Chand in front of a painting from the Situations series | Photo credit: Nainu Oommen

“Art is an aesthetics of coexistence and struggle,” reads a rectangular white board next to the door to Shibu Chand’s latest art exhibition, “Text/Context,” at the Alliance Française de Trivandrum. Upon entering, the off-white gallery walls are lined with scrolls of illustrations painted in a variety of mediums, from striped blue lungs to machine-made khadi fabric.

However, Shibu’s experiments with his paintings were born out of scarcity rather than choice. As the world fell asleep following the pandemic, artists like Shibu were forced to consider alternatives to traditional canvas due to the lack of art supplies.

“I started painting on lungs, then I found it interesting and started painting other fabrics,” Shibu says.

The curation includes 14 works drawn or painted on various media and in various sizes, which the artist created over a three-year period, from 2021 to 2024. This is Shibu’s seventh solo exhibition and third in Thiruvananthapuram. The exhibition includes works from the Limited Spaces and Situations series, some of which were presented in a group art exhibition at the Jehangir Museum in Mumbai.

Recurring motifs

Four paintings from the Limited Spaces series explore the themes of discomfort and disappearance.

A painting from the Limited Spaces series by artist Shibu Chand | Photo credit: Nainu Oommen

One of the works, which used acrylic on printed sheet, was inspired by an incident when Shibu spotted bisons outside his house in Panayamuttam, Thiruvananthapuram. Shibu claims that the animals left their natural habitat in the forest and entered cities out of fear.

Shibu also depicts loss through two paintings from the same series. One of the paintings shows an image referring to a sacrificial scenery, in the other the artist evokes an image Kaavus (sacred groves). “A lot of things are disappearing from our midst. Mountains and hills disappear. The Kaavus they disappear,” he says. Shibu adds that the painting on the blue lung was inspired by research conducted for his Ph.D. Kalamezhuthuthe ritual of using powder color to draw ritual patterns on the floor.

Another painting from the Limited Spaces series, made on lungs, reminiscent of the painting | Photo credit: Nainu Oommen

Vanishing Thoughts, painted on handmade Khadi canvas, depicts the symbiosis of nature using dark shades of green. The visible intertwining of the image’s elements reflects the presence of vines and roots wrapped around the tree and warns that the loss of one of them may result in the destruction of the entire ecosystem.

In Unexpected Space, the artist uses acrylic on a canvas slightly smaller than the rest of the works presented in the exhibition. Shibu uses red to represent a fish held in a fishing bowl, outside of which is an ocean with a hue similar to the fish, alluding to its removal from its natural environment.

A painting titled Unexpected Spaces | Photo credit: Nainu Oommen

The artist mainly uses scrolls to display his paintings. He says, “Scroll painting is part of Indian culture and is rooted in our tradition. In the old days, singers would go around carrying scrolls containing stories, and they would go to places and tell these warnings that were meant to edify and educate.”

Shibu says he started drawing on the board at a young age while studying at a government school. “When I wrote what the teachers asked me to do, I also drew pictures on the board next to it.” But now Shibu, also an artist at the Kerala State Department of Medical Education, says his art tells him where to draw next. For him, this comes naturally and adds: “These are all my thoughts. The language I speak is the language of colors.

Shibu Chanda’s solo exhibition Text/Context is currently taking place at the Alliance Française de Trivandrum and will run until October 30. The gallery is open from 10:00 to 18:00 from Monday to Saturday.