The artist as an intellectual activist

Years after entering the campus wearing a red shirt and waving a banner, artist Srinivas Reddy shows his mellow art creations
At his studio in Attapur, artist Srinivas Reddy sits framed by his sculptures and terracotta figurines and huge paintings created by his wife, Rohini Reddy. Blowing smoke rings, playing with his salt and pepper shoulder length hair, the artist goes into a reverie as he remembers the time when he discovered art.“I was no good at studies.The village school required a walk of 4 km from my home in Dacharam, near Suryapet.We had wood-fired stoves at home. Using the leftover charcoal pieces, I started drawing on the kitchen wall, the walls outside the house and everywhere I could. I drew images of NTR (ex-chief minister), gods and goddesses from calendars. Village activities like threshing, milking, doing cartwheels were the stuff of village life and I soaked them up. See this, one of the earlier works, a woman winnows rice. Those days were simple,” says Srinivas Reddy, as his two sons flit in and out of rooms and play with various gizmos.
For a boy from a village, with a farmer father, Srinivas Reddy didn’t have it easy once he reached the city of Hyderabad for admission to the mecca of all wannabe artists: JNFAU. “I just wanted to be an artist,” he says. Once he got admission, his classmates and faculty members were surprised to see the young man step into the campus wearing a red shirt and white trousers, waving a revolutionary banner. “I was active in the revolutionary movement. Now, I am no longer part of the movement but you can see a yearning for freedom and a sense of order from my works. One of my teachers advised me to focus my activism to create art,” says the artist, who now juggles his time between his house built in 1996 and the studio coming up in Rajendranagar. “I like to work in peace,” he says quietly.
Years after he stopped drawing with the charcoal and after stints at Kanoria Centre perfecting his art and courses pursued at the MS University, Baroda, Srinivas Reddy’s art is a transformative experience. “It was an accident that I did a course in sculptures.Among arts, sculpture comes somewhere low in the pecking order. During a national study tour, many of my classmates thought I wouldn’t beable to do achieve anything. But life is different,” says the artist, who met his artist wife Rohini while pursuing the course in Baroda.
At a gallery, where his sculptures are on display, visitors encounter a massive glossy bronzed head with red lips. It sits there, inviting the people to make their own interpretation of what it means. Sitting on a mirrored surface is another oblong head, painted in multiple hues. Then there are drawings in ink. “These I drew when I was the principal of JNFA College. And I was afraid the artist in me will die. These sketches…,” he trails off suggesting that the artistic yearning never left him. While the heads take fantastic forms, the smaller bronzes can be easily understood. Not for him the rigid geometry and the perfect shape but a free flowing form. Sometimes, he tries to show what’s going on inside the head, the inner workings with sections cut away to prove the assembly line language of the brain.
While he brings a dexterous touch to fibreglass, his favourite medium remains earthy. “My favourite medium is terracotta. It is delicate when it is finished but during the process of creation, it is malleable. Transporting them is an issue, but the joy of creating,moulding and shaping them is unsurpassed. I want my studio to become an adda for art. Do come there,” he says with a smile.