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Ode from ol’ boy

One of the most notable among the new generation of sculptors, KS Radhakrishnan is certainly among the most significant.

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Neha Kirpal 

One of the most notable among the new generation of sculptors, KS Radhakrishnan is certainly among the most significant. His sculptural talents were acknowledged at a very young age when he was awarded the National Scholarship offered by the Government of India in 1978. Ever since, the artist has had more than 15 solo shows and numerous group shows across the country and abroad. And he credits all his success to his education at the Kala Bhavana in Shantiniketan where he first went to study as an 18-year-old.

Radhakrishnan nostalgically remembers his days in Shantiniketan. What inspired him most on campus were the monumental, open-air sculptures in cement, concrete and clay by the great master, Ramkinkar Baij, who was living and working in Shantiniketan at the time. Another of Radhakrishnan’s strong influences at the institute was Professor Sarbari Roy Chowdhury, who made sculptures cast in bronze. It is probably for this reason that he prefers modeling and bronze casting over new materials. He believes that an artist does not need to work with modern material to be a modern artist. “Experiments do not mean working on different materials, which many modern sculptors today do. Even in a single — maybe traditional material such as stone or bronze — one can do experiments,” he explains.

Recently, he curated Baij’s retrospective at the National Gallery of Modern Art. Currently, he is involved in curating an exhibition for his alma mater, Kala Bhavana, in Shantiniketan, which is completing 100 years this year. “I am planning to do a photographic installation based on 100 years of Kala Bhavana. For the exhibition, I am hunting for images in the archives,” shares the artist. The exhibition, which will open in Shanitiniketan in September, is expected to travel to various parts of the country thereafter. 

Radhakrishnan is most known for his signature male and female characters, Maiya and Musui. The story behind them goes back to his college days in Shantiniketan too. “I came across a boy from Santhal tribe who was standing by the side of the road, asking for bread. Normally, when someone begs for something, they have a pathetic expression on their faces. But this boy was asking me for something with a simple smile on his face,” he recalls. Something about the tribal boy, whose name was Musui, made the young artist stop and notice him. He took him to his studio, made him sit down and created his portrait in clay. Radhakrishnan then made a life-size sculpture of his in plaster of Paris.

In 1981, he completed his MFA from Kala Bhavana and was awarded a research grant by the Lalit Kala Akademi, Delhi, to work in Garhi village. He decided to take Musui’s head along with him and it became a permanent fixture in his studio. When the ITC’s international travel house asked him to create a sculpture based on travel, he took inspiration from the hand-pulled rickshaws of Calcutta. He then made the same young tribal boy pull the rickshaw. Gradually, Musui became a recurring character in all of his sculptures. Over time, the artist felt that any narrative was complete only with a feminine counterpart. He named her Maiya, which means girl in Bengali. “In my work, both Musui and Maiya interact within themselves. Since they are inseparable, they take on integrated forms and compositions. Sometimes, I look at them individually as well,” he explains.  

In 1993, when Radhakrishnan built his current studio in Chattarpur, Delhi, there was not much development around the area. Most people came looking for jobs from the rural belts of Odisha or Tamil Nadu. Through these years, the artist has seen the entire colony coming up right in front of his eyes. Being an artist, his immediate environment naturally influenced his art work. “A series of anonymous people, who have no identity of their own, have come here and made a sort of human enclosure,” he says. This experience has resulted in Radhakrishnan’s series of sculptures called Human Box, in which tiny people multiply and come into human enclosures. “I sometimes call them Masuis and Maiyas coming from different places. These tiny people sometimes become streams, sometimes breeze and sometimes heat,” he adds.

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