Rajan Krishnan, Language of Woods, 2009
Art historian Kathleen Wyma writes “Krishnan’s paintings seize on sites of crystallized memory as critical interventions into the present. Re-calling and re-recollecting the flow and ebb of time (both real and imagined). His images simultaneously evoke the will to remember and the desire to heed the accretions of localized time.” In our current moment, as questions of climate worsen and the illusion of development as progress remains, every intentional stroke of Krishnan’s brush acts as a tool for contemplation. Scenes of dried up rivers, singular fish, and labyrinth-like groves invite us to reflect on the past, present, and future.
Rajan Krishnan was born in 1967, in the Thrissur district of Kerala. Having completed a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Krishnan decided to pursue his true love and signed up for a B.F.A (Painting) at the College of Fine Arts, Thiruvananthapuram. He then went on to pursue a Master’s degree at the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda. His international exhibitions include The Empire Strikes Back: Indian Art Today, at Saatchi Gallery, London, The Silk Road, New Chinese, Indian and Middle Eastern Art, from the Saatchi Gallery London, at Lille3000, France, India: Maximum City, at Galerie Helene Lamarque, Paris, Ancestry, at Aicon Gallery, New York and many group shows and art fairs in India and abroad. The artist passed away in 2016.