Realistic paintings win laurels

Coimbatore: Art can bring alive memories of  vibrant, exuberant childhood. Scenes of children shooting marbles, spinning tops, tugging wagons made of rubber slippers and flying paper planes can turn into beautiful work of art.  A budding artist S. S. Sugin from the Thrissur Government College of Fine Arts has recreated all his cherished childhood moments on the canvas, to notch up the Jury’s special prize at the seventh Barbara Sreenivasan Memorial Award on Thursday.

In the age of surrealistic art, realistic paintings can still grab eyeballs and laurels.  A still painting of fruits, vegetables and flowers in brilliant lighting  crafted by a second year student of Kumbakonam Fine Arts College was conferred the first prize in the prestigious annual award for fine arts. “The concept of lighting effect in the paintings of N.Chittibabu of the Kumbakonam Fine Arts College was brilliant and hence, he was chosen for the first prize, M.Kuppuraj, Manager of Kasthuri Sreenivasan Trust.  G.Sathyaraj and M.Arvind from the Kumbakonam Fine Arts College walked away with the second prizes.

Urbanization invaded Prem Kumar’s Tavanur village when he was a school boy It shook him and spurred him to depict his dejection on the canvas.  The paintings in acrylic and oil paintings feature the plants and grasses which once used to add to the beauty of his village landscape. The paintings  based on nature, moments from his childhood and mythological pieces  fetched the third prize for Prem Kumar.

He has been painting about pollution, noisy atmosphere in the village which once used to be serene.Around 150 paintings of budding artists from three colleges in Tamil Nadu, two colleges in Kerala and one college from Puducherry are on display at the Kasturi Sreenivasan Memorial Hall. As part of the event, a four-day annual painting workshop  is being held till December 28, 2014.