Sculptor PS Nandan in his studio at Cholamandal Artists’ Village in Chennai | photo credit: shaju john
Sculptor and artist P.S. Whenever Nandan talks about his art, there is a childlike joy in his mind. Eyes burning, he traces his now weakened fingers along the lines that once pointed to an amorphous figure in stone, or an abstract Ganesha in terracotta. These strokes are spread across his paintings and sculptures and in his words, which set the course for a realized work. Today, in the well-lit Varija Gallery of the DakshinaChitra Museum, from early paintings and daily sketches to large-format sculptures and scrolls, a brief look at the artist’s life comes alive as the retrospective show he always dreamed of .
“When we think of PS Nandan, we only think of idols. It was a surprise for me to learn that painting was actually his first love. Not many people know this,” says Gita Hudson, whose narrative highlights the entire body of work through each decade of Nandan’s life as an artist. And so, the narrative of the exhibition begins in the 1960s when Nandan’s paintings had a different character from what we see in his sculptures today. The colors stand out, the frames are crowded, and the figures defined: reminiscent of the school of the exuberant Madras art movement.
Nandan Cholamandal with his contemporaries from the Madras Art Movement at the Artists’ Village | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Over the years, sculptures became his mainstay, but the strokes that take physical form arise from his painting technique. “It is difficult to bring motion in idols. The strokes usually come from my painting practice,” says Nandan, who is 80 and paints every day. “I like to draw meditation For a musician,” he says.
Clay was one of his favorite plays as a six-year-old child in Madhuranthakam, Tamil Nadu: an early initiation into the world of idols. He started as Vinayagar (Ganesh). Today he has prepared 80 idols of Ganesha.
“Every medium is like water to me,” he says, “I do not begin work with a form in mind. Pen, brush or chisel take me. A strong belief in this philosophy has led to six decades of continuous work.” have followed them through. This association is built on an almost-blind devotion to the ‘line.’ “If you’re not patient, the line will move slowly. Disorientation will prevail. If concentration is maintained, it takes only a few seconds for the line to reach your hand,” says Nandan. His famous Buddha sculpture is proof of that: nowhere in the country will you find a Buddha with a hollow head: an invitation to the viewer to look within. “It started as a clay sculpture which was later translated into stone,” he says.
One of the early paintings of Nandan. Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Nandan’s forms shy away from linear progression: he proudly states that he does not conform to the traditional way of making form from the face. He likes to build from the base upwards. He describes how unpredictable his process is: “There was a stone that had been lying around for 10 years that didn’t inspire me. In anger I hit hard with the hammer. A part of it got snatched away. The other day I came back to the broken stone, and a figure appeared. That’s why I say that there is God in art.
Surya, a sculpture by PS Nandan | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
It was KCS Panicker who taught him that the scale of an artwork has nothing to do with creative skill. First, as the intensely observant principal of the Egmore College of the Arts, and then as the founder of the Cholamandal Artists’ Village, where Nandan would live and work for six decades. It was the same Panicker who told him, an eager, but rather nervous student, that a certain understanding could be brought about through sculpture, by learning other skills. Painting and drawing was Nandan’s answer to upskilling.
Although even during the pandemic, he worked on large sculptures, he has now stopped working with porcelain and clay on a much smaller scale. While health is the driving force for this, he refuses to stop. Even for a day. ,
There is a retrospective on PS Nandan at Varija Gallery, DakshinaChitra Museum till 31st May.