P Perumal spent a lifetime drawing what he knew best — the land he came from and the people who shaped it. With the villages of Tamil Nadu as the fundamental element, his works capture the everyday life—the labour, gatherings, and rituals that bind a community together. In the latest exhibition, Requiem in Resonance – The Everyday Drawn, these works come together as an archive of his lived experience.
Curated by Sharan Apparao, the exhibition draws from Perumal’s sustained engagement with rural life in Tamil Nadu. His works emerge from environments shaped by agricultural labour, ritual, belief, and collective presence. Figures in his artworks are inseparable from their surroundings, carrying the marks of the shared time. As Sharan puts it, his works function as “a documentation and act of spontaneity to connect with his own environment and history.”
Asked what audiences can expect from Requiem in Resonance, Sharan keeps it clear: “You will see the painting and drawings of the late artist Perumal of the Madras art movement.” These paintings does not follow a single narrative arc but a series of lived moments that features gatherings and dispersals, pauses and exertions of his village experiences.
His work follows the everyday without embellishment or dramatisation. This, Sharan explains, was essential to honour the artist’s intent. Perumal’s work speaks across time precisely because it resists excess. “It transports the viewer to acknowledging that there was an agrarian community that toiled. It also clearly indicates a kind of joy in spite of the hardships,” she notes, pointing to the emotional balance that runs through the works.
However, Sharan adds that bringing together artworks that span a long period of practice came with its own set of challenges. “To locate and find works that are of this vintage when the artist is no longer alive is the primary challenge. The second is building groups of these thoughts and preoccupations that are evident in his artworks,” she says.
Beyond the display, Requiem in Resonance opens up difficult but necessary conversations. “It certainly opens the idea of caste oppression and segregation of Dalit communities,” Sharan reflects. She also points to “the Christian conversions that allowed a level of self-worth that was important in uplifting these agrarian agricultural workers who were not owners of these lands.”
Open to all. On till February 21. Tuesday – Saturday. 3 pm to 6.30 pm. At Apparao Galleries, Nungambakkam, Chennai.
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