A childlike joy sneaks up on sculptor and artist PS Nandhan whenever he speaks of his art. Eyes lit up, he traces his now-frail fingers along lines that once were starting points to an amorphous figure in stone, or an abstract Ganesha in terracotta. These strokes are spread across his paintings and sculptures and are, in his words, what set the path to a realised work. Today, at DakshinaChitra Museum’s well-lit Varija Gallery, from early paintings and daily sketches, to large format sculptures and scrolls, a condensed take on the artist’s life comes alive as a retrospective show that he had always dreamt of.
“When we think of PS Nandhan, we only think of sculptures. It was surprising for me to discover that painting, in fact, was his first love. Not many people know that,” says Gita Hudson, whose curation throws light on Nandhan’s entire body of work through pathways to each decade of his life as an artist. And so, the narrative of the display starts in the 1960s when Nandhan’s paintings had a character different from what we see today in his sculptures. Colours stand out, frames are crowded, and figures are defined: reminiscent of the school of the prolific Madras Art Movement.
