Former Chief Secretary and current Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) president K. Jayakumar has played multiple roles in life. He has made his mark as an administrator and is rated among the best lyricists of his generation, with many of his critically acclaimed Malayalam movie songs bearing the earmarks of classic status. 

After a hiatus prompted to some extent by the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr. Jayakumar has returned to his original passion for painting, picking up easels, paints, palette knives and brushes. 

His 25th painting exhibition, Glimpses, at the Mauve Art Gallery on June 18, marks Mr. Jayakumar’s return to Thiruvananthapuram’s art scene after four years. 

The exhibition features 22 paintings, including 15 new works and a handful of older canvases selected from his earlier collections. 

Speaking to the Hindu, Mr. Jayakumar said he was eager to know how people will respond to the paintings born in the “cognitive privacy of creativity and the physical seclusion of the artist’s studio”. Mr. Jayakumar paints at home. 

Greatest inspiration

“You can paint and keep the work in your room. But when others come, see it, enjoy it, criticise it and comment on it, that becomes the greatest inspiration for an artist,” he said

Mr. Jayakumar said Kerala appeared more inclined to appreciate literary pursuits. “Painting seems to occupy the second row”, he said. 

“There is a question of artistic literacy. Kerala is highly literate when it comes to literature, but we have perhaps lagged behind a little in appreciating visual art,” he said.

According to Mr. Jayakumar, viewers often approach paintings expecting a fixed meaning, whereas visual art communicates through colour, composition, form and experience.

Mr. Jayakumar was relatively late to the world of painting. The muse of oil painting called on him rather belatedly at the age of 50. Mr. Jayakumar’s years as a bureaucrat in New Delhi were marked by gallery visits. He counted many known painters among his friends. “The creative chaos of the studious stood in stark contrast to the trimness of the administrative life I was habituated to for long years,” he said. 

Glimpses does not follow a single theme. However, Mr. Jayakumar said an “underlying emotional thread” connects his paintings. He said “creative restlessness” marked his long hours in the studio. “Imperfections inspire. They gift a serenity to the artists when they wash the brush for the night,” he added. 

(The writer, Malavika Devi J.R., is an intern with The Hindu, Thiruvananthapuram)