EXCAVATING CUTUAL TRADITIONS: VERBAL TO VISUAL
Giridhara Gowd is a nationally acclaimed and well known established artist, a name to be reckoned with, when it comes to contemporarizing mythical epic stories with his individualized, vision, imagination and sensibility. Earlier he had worked on the Dasavatar and Krishna Leela series. A flaneur of sort, desiring in finding sensuous pleasure in the narrative, the inherent philosophy that is subtly laced and cloaked in various stories in the epics, but above all it is the cultural roots of tradition manifest in the epic narratives, in the visual aesthetic of India’s pictorial tradition and the varied regional and folk styles visible in the murals at Lepakshi, Badami, Aihole, Hampi, Pattadakkal, Tadipatri, Srisailam, Kalahasti, Tirupati, and especially the paintings in Vijayanagara called Bhitti paintings that attracts and inspires Giridhara in its multitudinous dimensions and characters to produce works marked with subtle sophistication, originality and creativity.
Giridhara Gowd is an artist based out of Garuvupalem, a small rural village in Guntur District of Andhra Pradesh. His methodology in terms of technique and format, thematic content and subject matter mark a return to tradition in its redefinition, infusing with renewed vigour, vitalized vision and reinvention. At the heart of his creative endeavour is his engagement with country’s visual art tradition particularly the murals and miniature paintings. He foregrounds these pictorial arts to serve as conduit of creative expression, thinking and articulating through epics, Puranic and mythical narratives. Giridhara says, “I have developed an immense interest in stories, poems and historical legends from my childhood. I have always approached these legends not as religious, superstitious stories but as priceless epics, a treasure house of wisdom and as unique examples of the essence of life”. It is in the winnowing of narratives, through a figurative visual language, which allows him to interpret according to his experiences, perceptions and most vitally his inner most desire to bring forth with a new vocabulary the translation of the verbal into the visual through his meaningful comprehension of this episteme premised on his imagination. As a matter of fact the latter plays a seminal role in decoding the semiotics of the epics and stories to provide the semantic on his terms but knowledgably.