Kalabhakesari : Urban Ruins

Uma Nair

“My work is about struggle, it’s about the cages we are put into because society slots us and gives us a place according to the money we have, the people we know. We are not given a place because of what our mental capability is. I am looking at life with all its dishonesty and deceit and destruction. People have exploited me for the fact that I didn’t know what deception. When I think of struggle I think of so many things that have grown around me and filled my livelihood –I feel as if I’m free but I am living in chains. I feel today is not a time for monuments, it is a time for ruins.”

– Kesari to Uma Nair

Kerala artist Kesari’s words give us a flashback of newspapers across the world splashed with images of social collapse, disaster, and grief. When Kesari brought home his canvasses, his imagery transfixed me because in his subjects I could feel a rare but deepened sense of mournful beauty that actually filled me with a sad but lurid fascination.