Latest news with #BindhiRajagopal
New Indian Express
30-04-2025
- General
- New Indian Express
This Kerala artist's mangrove series is a meditation on ecology, emotions
A mangrove root — a tangled heap sculpted out of paper — sits idly in the centre of the Durbar Hall Art Gallery, where artist Bindhi Rajagopal's exhibition, The Grounded Guardians, is underway. An uncanny object yet not unfamiliar, one may wonder. But before they could contemplate it any further, their eyes are pulled elsewhere. To the walls, where several artworks are neatly displayed, each, in ways of their own, articulate the wonders and wanes of exactly what they had just overlooked — mangroves. Just like Bindhi had, all those years ago. This exhibition, whose tagline reads, A Meditation on Mangrove Roots, is then a callback, a recollection for Bindhi, for whom these shrubs that littered the brackish waters in Kochi, her hometown, were once a familiar sight. These swirling, curling roots were always there, according to her, until they were not. It was a truth that she had barely paid attention to. Not for many years. Not until 2018, when, while teaching at an architectural school, Bindhi stumbled upon a lecture that talked about, among other things, mangroves, and how they were instrumental in the collective fight against climate change. 'It was right after the deluge of 2018, and a few foreign scientists had visited the college to take a class on climate change. No doubt, the lecture was a nudge to return once again to the roots,' Bindhi tells TNIE. 'I remember clearly, back then, buildings were sparse, and trees and wetlands were more common in Kochi. Mangrove roots were always above ground, visible and hypnotic due to the interconnected patterns they create,' she says. 'It is an ecosystem, home to birds, insects, and animals. The mangrove protects everything in its reach, keeps the land together. Like mothers. That's the first image that rushed to my mind during the lecture,' Bindhi adds. This image steered her in the years to come, in her artistic endeavours. Every time she picked up a brush, the memory yearned to seep into the canvas, bleed into the colours. 'It's like a poem or a story that refuses to leave you behind. You just have to write it. For me, mangroves are something that I just have to paint. There's no other option.' Every work that Bindhi has done since has some element of mangrove in it, if not explicitly, then certainly, abstractly. The Grounded Guardians, the artist's first solo exhibition since 2018, is a compilation of all these works and has been eight years in the making. 'It's been a long time, I know. There were the floods, then Covid. Now, after a long break, I have enough paintings to hold a solo exhibition,' Bindhi smiles. The artist had lost several of her works during the deluge. Even more was given away to aid fundraising and help those who have lost their home in the floods. Even then, 25 works — 24 from the current series and one from her previous exhibition at Florence Biennale — adorn the walls of Durbar Hall Art Gallery, inviting the public to see that which they had inadvertently overlooked, to introspect, and even imagine. As for the mangrove sculpture, Bindhi says, 'It's for those who don't yet know what a mangrove looks like.' For, indeed, the paintings can never quite tell the complete picture, can it? Only fragments. Only what's needed. They tease an idea, conjure an emotion, draw the beholder into the complex puzzle that his web of mangrove roots invariably is. Bindhi's affinity is not limited to just mangroves, of course. Her own cats and a plethora of animals, too, feature in her works. The inspiration: the recent human-wild animal conflict on Kerala's forest fringes. 'It's man-made, isn't it?' she asks. 'We took away their home and reduced the forest where they grazed, hunted and scavenged. They are just walking the same path as always, where we have encroached and constructed buildings,' Bindhi elaborates. 'This place is for all of us — the mangroves, the animals, and also us. We don't have ownership of the Earth. That's what I intend to convey, the message of my works,' Bindhi signs off.
The Hindu
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Artist Bindhi Rajagopal's works showcase the ecological importance of mangroves
Shades of mossy green, dominate artist Bindhi Rajagopal's latest show, The Grounded Guardians: A Meditation on Mangrove Roots, on at the Durbar Hall Art Gallery. The latest show is an ode to mangroves which form a green wall around the city where it meets the backwaters. Mangroves hold the earth, they prevent natural calamities and they nurture life like a mother would, hence, Bindhi says, she has used them as a recurring motif in the works. 'This is my first solo show in a long time. First came the 2018 floods, then COVID-19… one thing after the other kept happening. The works on show are those that I worked on over this period. These are not all, just some,' she adds, laughing. Intertwining mangrove roots border some of the works, footprints forming the background for a couple of her latest works. The past impacts the future as much as the present. Bindhi seems to suggest that we have to be careful about what we leave behind for future generations. 'I attended a workshop by a scientist on the role mangroves play in preserving ecology, and that got me curious about them. The idea embedded itself in my mind,' Bindhi explains why she chose mangroves. Some of the works have a woman with cats, while others have fish and algae-like life forms, all of which seem to draw sustenance from each other. The paintings reveal symbiotic relationship with nature and all its creatures, mankind included. 'I am trying to say through my works how our actions impact all creation, and how we should be responsible.' Bindhi, an alumnus of RLV College of Music and Fine Arts, has been practising her craft for close to three decades. She held her first show in 1992 followed by one in 1998. Over the years she has been part of solo and group shows in Kerala and abroad and has also curated art shows. She has been an art teacher in a school and later, an assistant professor of visual arts in a college. She uses visual metaphors and symbolism to get her point across. For instance, one of her paintings done during COVID-19 is actually three - a triptych, which shows three women on three different canvases. All three wear masks, and despite being together they cannot inhabit the same space. The isolation is unmissable. 'Isn't that how we felt during the pandemic? My daughters felt it intensely, not being able to step out or meet friends. That was all of us. The painting is the three of us or it could be anybody!' The artist is preoccupied with the past, present and future, and how one impacts the other. The works on show bear testimony to it. The show on at Durbar Hall Art Gallery concludes on April 30.
