Nature Morte’s new exhibition “Grammar of Randoms” showcases Rm Palaniappan’s paintings on canvas and paper, his hand-colouring and collage elements

For the sixth edition of IN TOUCH, gallery Nature Morte presents a new exhibition – “Grammar of Randoms”. IN TOUCH, the digital platform was created in partnership between 11 galleries in India and Dubai to present online exhibitions.

The collaborative nature of the platform brings together a diverse range of programs and artists. It aims to be in touch with each other through organized and synergistic exhibition-making that challenges traditional formats of engaging with art.

Nature Morte’s show explores artist Rm Palaniappan’s most recent paintings on canvas and paper. This online viewing room is an extension of their exhibition by the same name. 

The artworks made by Rm Palaniappan in the 1980s and 1990s began their lives as prints only to become unique works by the artist’s additions of drawing, hand-colouring, and collage elements. Their subject matters were multifarious, steeped in a diversity of approaches to visual data culled from a variety of disciplines. 

As the century turned, the artist began to hone his imagery into more concise statements, concentrating on lines and how they traverse fields. As if enlarging details found in his previous works, the paintings Palaniappan has been making for the past ten years now make more direct statements while retaining all their inherent ambiguities.

Backgrounds continue to be subdivided and demarcated, perimeters are emphasized, and measurements are pronounced. These for the actors which now twist and cavort in the foreground, their shaded bodies registering for our eyes as both three dimensional space and the fourth dimension of time. 

Palaniappan’s use of colors and tones for both foreground actors and background supports lends a subtle richness to the goings-on, an almost musical play of different sounds bouncing off of one another. The subject of these paintings are bodies, either animate or not, as they move through both time and space. 

What might be the easiest for viewers to recognize in these paintings is something of their own lives: the people who occupy major roles for a period of time, only to fade away and later return, or the entanglements with various others which may determine the character of our own personalities and the directions of our travels.

The exhibition can be viewed on the website of Art IN TOUCH till July 1