Balancing acrobats

K S Radhakrishnan's bronze sculptures of Musui and Maiya, his omnipresent characters, effortlessly prance in gravity defying movements.

Musui's acrobatics never fail to amuse. He seems air-borne, his lean and taut bronze body spins, dances, runs and balances on his shaved head, buoyant, a mysterious smile at having dreamt up some mischief clearly evident.

Maiya too reclines in acrobatic rhythm, a cheerful counterpart and playmate to Musui, their animated movements almost defying gravity. For K S Radhakrishnan, Musui is his muse, an alter ego that has grown with him over the decades. And Maiya? She is Musui's female counterpart, "Or how else does the story go forward," queries Radhakrishnan.

In the mid 1970s Radhakrishnan had gone to Shantiniketan to learn painting, but it was the hammer and chisel that he felt most comfortable with. "My temperament leans more towards the hammer and chisel," says Radhakrishnan.

Using clay to mould his sculptures, and then casting them in bronze, for Radhakrishnan dealing with real space was both different and more appealing than dealing with pictorial space.

Radhakrishnan's real space has always had the human figure, and he has almost never experimented with anything else. It was in his Shantiniketan days that Radhakrishnan got the Santhal boy Musui to model for him. Musui ran to the barber's shop and had his head shaved with the Rs 10 from his first modelling assignment.

His naked head and unadorned body became the perfect figure to sculpt for Radhakrishnan. So much so that even after leaving Shantiniketan, Musui's engaging charm and his lean and flexible figure became a fixated image in Radhakrishnan's mind to experiment with its endless possibilities.

Musui and Maiya's lean figures are elongated and lithe. Since 1997 they have proved inseparable, having assumed iconic status in Radhakrishnan's explorations.

"Their thinness and elongated form helps me to deliver their flexible postures," explains Radhakrishnan, adding, "It determines the movement from within." Freehold, with immense lightness, Radhakrishnan's sculptures use minimum contact with their revolving base to allow Musui and Maiya to spin in whatever gymnastic mode he allows them.

How does Radhakrishnan manage to balance his figures with such little support? How does he manage to balance their air-borne weight? The sculptor doesn't reveal anything except to say, "My experience over the decades has now taught me what can and cannot balance at just a glance."

The outer surface of Radhakrishnan's sculptures is rough and he lets the texture given by the clay mould be. He confesses to loving people and the human drama, and therefore always likes to work at a life size level.

No wonder at times Radhakrishnan's sculptures stand tall at eight feet, while bronze adds a weight of anywhere between 100-130 kilos to them. "Each one takes months," says Radhakrishnan quipping, "there are no short-cuts in this baby-making process."

Movement, the more impossible and light, fascinates Radhakrishnan: "It is my primary artist," he says. Gallerist Sunaina Anand of Art Alive comments on it: "Radhakrishnan's works are now more free, the figures floating with a lightness and rhythm."

Musui does not seem to want to take leave of Radhakrishnan at least for now, for the sculptor sees himself and expresses himself through Musui.

Maiya mirrors Musui's spirit where both effortlessly play their roles. Radhakrishnan imagines them at times in a linear-two dimensional view with titles like, 'Musui as Natraj' or 'Maiya as Mona Lisa'. "I cannot work for anything else, Musui and Maiya are my characters and will continue to be," affirms Radhakrishnan.