Artist G Prathapan’s stint with the sea started in 2013, when he was residing at a lakeside home in Mattancherry. One day while standing near the lake savouring the landscape, an unfortunate incident caught his attention – a tortoise in the lake struggling to escape the long sleeve of a polyester shirt. Although it made all attempts to wriggle out, it just could not. It was trapped inside the cloth.
“I had a tough time saving the tortoise,” recalls the artist, sitting at David Hall, Fort Kochi, where he spends his daytime drawing portraits of visitors for a living. “I have also seen fishes trapped in plastic bottles floating on the water. All these inspired me to draw the consequences of plastic on sea creatures.”
In the past six years, fishes, birds and animals of the sea have found a place on his canvas; he has done more than 100 works in the series. His drawings have been featured twice at the Kaarisilta Biennale, an art fest in Finland, the latest being an invitation to showcase nine of his works from the series ‘Trapped Earth by Plastic’ at this year’s biennale held from June 26 to August 4.
“The first appearance was in 2017,” reminiscences Prathapan. A recipient of the Siddhartha Foundation Awards, one of his works was selected for Lalit Kala Akademi’s National Exhibition of Art in 2015. ‘Motherhood Denied’, his painting before the sea pollution series, had bagged the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi award in 2010.
Prathapan says initially the sea pollution series was a laborious task for him. He had to come up with an idea from the incidents and create a pattern to depict it on canvas. “I don’t replicate an event on canvas. I try to give a perspective. I have always drawn or painted social issues. But this was the first time that I worked on a series,” he says.
And he considers each drawing or painting as the base for his next work. “Each work is a study for me. I try to develop new expressions every time,” explains Prathapan, who works with acrylic, charcoal and pen. Some of his earlier works in the series had colour, but after two or three images he decided to avoid that. “Because, issues like these should not be romanticised with colours.” Hence, he zeroed in on black and white.
The images are mostly drawn using pen. Now, developing ideas about sea pollution is easier, he says. “Imageries are accumulated in my subconscious mind,” says the artist to whom the menace is more of cultural pollution. “I don’t think it’s possible to ban plastic, an advancement of science, all of a sudden. What we can do is to reduce its usage or reuse the products. Above all, we have to stop this habit of throwing waste into nature. That is what I am trying to convey,” he explains.
Prathapan says working on the sea pollution series has been equally exciting and exhausting. It has been exciting because the series brought him accolades and let him delve deep into this global phenomenon. “It is bigger than one can imagine,” he says. “I am not an expert in the field, but from my studies I learnt that the seabed is covered with plastic and other waste materials which put the lives of sea creatures in danger. It indirectly affects us too. The salt made from sea water contains plastic particles.”
He says the series was exhausting as it made him dull. One might find it strange, but he does not hesitate to admit that drawing about the pollution has taken a toll on him “Imagine you think and talk about issues all the time. How would it feel? I am experiencing that. Constantly thinking about pollution is actually polluting my mind. It is I who got trapped in that polyester shirt,” he says.
In 2017, he decided to stop the series. “But the invitation to the Kaarisilta Biennale this year encouraged me to do more,” he says.
Prathapan says the plan to divert his attention is still alive. “I don’t want to stop it all of a sudden, but I will definitely slow down. In future, I may stop,” he concludes.
Elizabeth Thomas describes herself as a wild woman who finds happiness in words, colours, coffee and journeys.