DIGITAL COPY ON MAGZTERa vital ingredient in Reji’s work but he admits ‘when it
comes through I won’t deny it’. However, it is not Reji’s
sense of humour that Surendran Nair, the monarch of
large narrative canvases, admires. ‘It is the classic notion
in his painterly quality that has stumped me. The way
he handles things fascinates me, particularly the image–
space relationships.’ This from a man who, as a student,
was scared of doing anything beyond imperial scale ‘till
I got the courage to change in the early 1990s’. He says
there have been times when he has started afresh on a
concept even after having finished a project because he
began thinking differently during the execution of the
idea. ‘Sometimes,’ he says, ‘the idea itself evolves with
the change in conditions as your working and the shifts
happens in between.’ For Reji the process is not too
different either because he started studying sculpture and
painting together. ‘Therefore, I never feel the shift from
one to another. Some ideas come as painting and some
as sculpture.’Untitled 12, Surendran Nair, Archival
Print on Archival Paper
(Ed: 10 + 2 AP), 30'' x 22'', 2015
Image Courtesy of
Sakshi Gallery and the ArtistIAF - Delhi Connecting Art/ FEB 2016 - MAR 2016 / ARTS ILLUSTRATED /^51