What happens to a dream deferred? Asked Langston Hughes from Harlem renaissance.  He concluded his famous poem by aptly assuming that it would eventually explode!  The explosive and subversive power of human dreams that are visual signs and memories are explored on canvas in my first solo exhibition of painting titled “Dreams Deferred” which is on at Dubar Hall Art Centre, Ernakulam from May 9 to 15, 2010 (Gallery D, First Floor).

'Pandit Karuppan' Mixed Media 2010

Paintings and drawings done in the last few years in acrylic and mixed media are on show including figurative and abstract compositions, portraits and landscapes.  The images and motifs radically question, deconstruct and subvert mainstream visual culture and representation.  Sites of power and hegemony are critiqued and caricatured.  The art show is part of a new democratic cultural politics of difference in the field of visual culture and semiotics.

'Nude' Acrylic on Canvas 2007

The works are well situated within the contesting locations of culture and struggle within Kerala and its contemporary cultural history.  Visual references and nuances point towards the historic epistemological and semiotic struggle between cultural elitism and democratic politics of the people, the subaltern.  All who are interested in the contemporary visual culture and the politics of resistance and survival are welcome to this little act.

Some Media Responses

New Indian Express Review

Report in Desabhimani Daily

Review in Metro News

Viewers at the gallery

Related posts:

1. First Malayalam Book on Cultural Politics in Kerala
2. Profanations: Art Show with a Difference
3. Spinal Cord: Malayalam Theater is Live and Kicking Abroad!

No, not a single letter is seen

Portrait of Poykayil Appachan, Charcoal on Paper 2010, Ajay Sekher

On my race

So many histories are seen

On so many races

Scrutinize each one of them

The whole histories of the world

Not a single letter is seen

On my race

There was no one on this earth

To write the history

Of my race in the olden days

What a pity!

Think of it

Regret fills within

Let me add something

In my own melody

The story of

A people who lived in Kerala

Since the ancient times

And how they became demons

No shame have I

To say the faults of my caste

Though all blame me

A cursed offspring on earth

How is it possible

That all blame us

Till the end

Of earth and sky

How can God

Who shaped everything

Allow this to happen

On earth today?

(Translated from Malayalam by Dr Ajay Sekher).

For details and more songs by this dalit social reformer of Kerala see Unknown Subjects: Songs of Poykayil Appachan. Edited by V V Swamy and E V Anil. Translated by Ajay Sekher. Kottayam: IPRDSS, 2008.

Related posts:

1. “Rain-Home” A Poem by Bijoy Chandran
2. About Me
3. “Lying Around” a poem by V R SANTHOSH