Here, in this series, ‘Of Solitude and Selfies’, the artist is not portraying himself, but seeing the world through himself as an icon. Here the human figure is a metaphor of humanity caught up in turmoil from within and outside.
Silence has always been the trait of Dhanaraj’s world of creativity. When we see some of his older paintings such as the lonely theyyam artist looking at the mirror, we experience this. This silence is expressive and it says a lot. But this time, it is more audible, as if in Edward Munch’s, ‘The Scream’, which screams in silence.
The inspiration, or rather the provocation, to do these paintings was the thought as to how could he mark this time, which is not at all familiar to us, says the artist. “In these turbulent days, I observed that people go deep into themselves and ‘selfie’ has become the expression of our times. So, naturally, I felt I should use it to portray our times through me only,” he shares how it all happened. But, socially and politically this se
