Kerala Murals: The magic of five colours

Kerala Murals: The magic of five colours

Mangaluru: Its all five colours, Yellow, Red, Green, Blue and Black that gets into a mural paintings at Kerala. And, how the white comes into the picture. It's just the original colour of the canvas, explains Prakash V K from Vara Group, a team of nine mural artists from Kanhangad town in Kasaragod district in Kerala who have displayed their works in the city.

Kerala Mural painting was once confined into the temples of Kerala and the art used colours mixed using colour stones and herbal juice. Thus the colour code for the art is defined. There are mural paintings still present in the famous temples like Guruvayur, Padmanabha temple at Thiruvananthapuram.

The mural painting later moved out of the temple and the medium of art got into the canvas with acrylic colours. “However, the colour code is confined into these five colours and the art is mostly made of delicate dots created on the canvas”, said Gireesh OV, another mural artist.

The murals are mostly on the God and Goddeses and Lord Krishna in blue in the favourite of artists. “There is also a dress code for the pictures mostly made of the fine lines and each God or Goddess a definite crown that can't be alternated. Same goes to the ornaments shown in the pictures”, Prakash said.

There are art schools at Mahe, Thrissur and Guruvayur where the mural painting is taught for a period of three years. After their formal studies, the nine-member-team studied the fine details during a 30-days course conducted by famous international mural artist and Kerala Government Kshethra Kala Award Winner, Biju Panapuzha who has inaugurated the mural painting exhibition at Prasad Art Gallery on Saturday. Other members of the Varu Group are, Ajitha Santhosh, Subash Madikai, Seetha Mohan, Priya K, Pushpalath VK, Raashmi P and Sheena AK. The exhibition is open for Monday too.

Mural painting is no more confined to deities and has stepped into churches as the Last Supper of Jesus and Jesus rising from the dead, the latter being displayed in the exhibition. Recently, the team has done nearly 100 mural paintings at Kanhangad Bus stand. Among the art works at display, 'chandalabikshuki' poem by Mahakavi Kumaran Ashan is a beautiful rendition of Buddhist monk discoursing with a low caste woman. Another different painting is the woman returning back with daily provisions for home.

Considering the intrinsic work involved, it takes sometimes three weeks to create one art work. The finest art is priced Rs 2000 per square feet, said the artists.