Sivam Selvaratnam’s kaleidoscopic Malay canvas

An image of zen. This is how most keep in mind the late Malaysian artist Sivam Selvaratnam, a pioneering feminine voice within the still-growing melting pot that’s post-Independence Malayan artwork. The ‘zen’ was not simply restricted to her persona — her canvases spoke of a quiet confidence. Deeply meditative at instances, and unpredictable at others, the artist’s physique of labor spanned genres and mediums, leading to an oeuvre that resonated with many.

Over 200 works from Sivam’s six-decades-long profession, curated by Sivarajah Natarajan and Cyril Pereira of Sutra Foundation (devoted to selling and preserving conventional and modern performing arts), have lately been consolidated right into a e book. Sivam Selvaratnam: A Life in Art charts the artist and trainer’s life, greater than 10 years since her passing.

“When I was studying at the Malaysian Institute of Art, I was introduced to art history. We don’t have a history like India, but there was a group founded by Sir Peter Harris, an Englishman [in 1952],” says Sivarajah, over a cellphone name from Kuala Lumpur. “This was the first art group that was formed, and they would gather every Wednesday and paint.” The Wednesday Art Group tried to interrupt away from Eurocentric traditions and platformed artists with distinctive, fashionable types. Sivam was one in all its key members. “When my lecturer mentioned the name, I was fascinated at how Indian-sounding it was,” says Sivarajah, recalling his first brush with the artist.

Malaysian artist Sivam Selvaratnam

Into a world of color

Born in Kajang, Malaysia, to folks of Sri Lankan Tamil origins, Sivam grew up surrounded by rubber plantations, tropical sunshine and plentiful monsoons. And so, nestled deep in her canvases, be it realist or summary, had been the greens and browns that had been exhausting to overlook. But earlier than coming into the world of colors, she pursued a level in instructing in Malaysia, continued her research within the Manchester College of Art and Design (now Manchester Metropolitan University), and did a Masters in Art and Design on the University of London.

Sivam’s early western influences had been that of Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky and Swiss-German artist Paul Klee. And from the Indian Modernists, the Bengal School of Art and artist Raja Ravi Varma. In 2012, Sivarajah led a curation of all the artist’s work, marking Sivam’s first solo present ever. Titled Rapt in Maya, it was displayed on the Universiti Malaya Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur. During the course of the curation, over lemon cream biscuits, Sivarajah and Sivam would discuss at size in regards to the inventive course of behind every work performed over years spent in journey along with her husband. Some of her most famous works such because the Colour of Rain collection, Self Portraits, MetamorphosisandIridescence, and Twilight Raga, are featured on this quantity.

Her household, whose private accounts enrich the e book, lends insights into the artist’s private life and values. Lakshmi Selvaratnam, her eldest daughter-in-law, fondly shares: “My earliest recollection of her as an artist was at her home when we were children. They [her paintings] were colourful and abstract, unlike anything that you saw on walls at the time.”

For Lakshmi, Sivam’s sense of shapes and color was a degree of intrigue. “Sometimes, some pieces become a blend of sound and colour, and very much an expression of her inner self,” she says. On the opposite hand, her observational sketches and drawings present her penchant for planning and execution, and maybe held up a mirror to her love for instructing.

Instinctive and curious

Sivam was multi-faceted. “We cannot frame her into one genre. She was very adventurous,” says Sivarajah. She was captivated with textile, jewelry design, and printmaking — dabbling in each linocut and woodcut printing. How she analysed color principle in her abstracts stayed with Sivarajah. “A regular to Chennai’s annual Margazhi festival, she was influenced by Carnatic music and the ragas.”

An educationist, she was all the time a trainer at coronary heart, which additionally spoke to her perfectionist method to artwork research. “She was instinctive, and always curious,” says Lakshmi. The artist’s closing piece of labor titled Curioser (2014) — which reveals her distinctive exploration of recollections by hieroglyphic symbols (and makes up the duvet of this e book) — is now on the National Art Gallery, together with one other work titled Malapetaka (1962).

Peppered with artworks and private essays, the e book charts a life properly spent within the firm of artwork.

‘Sivam Selvaratnam: A Life in Art’ is on cabinets now.

The journalist is predicated in Chennai.