Making reality iconic

Riyas Komu explores the reality of the common man in his larger than life paintings and sculptures.

Riyas Komu's huge oil canvases with close-up portraits of young men make you think "in your face" is an understatement. The portraits are as real as possible "" every twitch of the eye muscle, pupils reflecting a scene or the slightest of frowns is visible "" allowing one to read each face.

Their size is almost intimidating at times but Komu is glorifying these regular automobile garage boys or "deemed citizens" who systematically come from villages to cities fulfilling the demand for hard labour.

Titled "Systematic Citizens", to be shown at Palette Art Gallery in Delhi, Komu sought to translate photographic images onto large canvases and seek attention for these neglected social contributors.

On another wall, his small wooden sculptures of India's map are branded with a star and a hammer that is encircled "" indicative emblems of hard labour and the labour movements. The seal bears a stark resemblance to the Communist Party symbol, but Komu doesn't want "intellectualise them", he says.

But it does take one back to Komu's student days when he actively participated in student political campaigns in Kerala in the 1980s. He recalls his main skill then was drawing graffiti for political campaigns and that initiated the thought process to explore art further.

The seven-year stint at the Sir JJ School of Arts in Mumbai let him explore most art mediums except new media.

"Audio-visual and installations were never a part of art school curriculums and that furthered the aggression to explore them," says Komu.

A self-confessed cinema addict, Komu's painted images often come from a single frame of tele-visual media "" sometimes his photography that only happens when he takes a break. In paintings, sculptures or even humungous installations, Komu's works usually convey an anthropological impulse.

Like the 56 feet long sculpture "Lost Resonance" of Arabic calligraphy, dealing with the situation of a particular script. Or the huge wooden installation "My father's balcony" dealing with how an individual reacts to the current chaotic ideological climate, the ladder and balcony symbolic of openness: "It has a Sufi streak in it," says Komu. "But" he explains, "my reaction to them is posthumous, never predictable."

Somewhere, his graffiti skills emerge in his sculptures, feels Komu. He prefers to do wall sculptures since they remind him of his wall graffiti days.

Be it metal sculptures in automotive paint, such as the "Keep Cooking, red blood series" or "The tragedy of a carpenter's son" "" they are all "symbolic with respect to attracting support for a cause", he says. The repetitions of a particular form in a series are indicative to the commonality of the subjects he is addressing.

Komu likes doing large works as "the moment you enlarge a particular subject, it automatically reflects magnanimity", he says adding, "like rock music sounds better loud". Plus, it gels with his temperament to stand and work to the point of burnout.

Exploring new media "" documentaries and video art "" are next on Komu's plans since he stopped doing them a while ago. "I think video art is one of the best mediums that has the possibility of reaching out to people but it's still nascent in India," he says. Gallerist Rohit Gandhi of Palette Art Gallery feels that "Komu's works deal with reality in which strength and depth are enormous."