Bodies of the Earth

Published in Chandrika Weekly ?(Malayalam)??, December, 2015

Gipin Varghese’s art locates the past, the evolution of the globe, hence it deals with the History of Human race.That forms a path from pre-historic to present, a new tool to interpret the humans-nature relation. The whole script is written in the code green.

Miniature-Tribal Roots

He absorbs light and water from vivid miniature traditions. Humans, trees, birds, everything submerges in the same plane, and they are in-separable. Diluted colours are used, many layers indicates the depth and spread of time. He is in the rare group of artists who could recognize and use the miniature language fruitfully in their works. His works contain the memories of depression and oppression of generations. Body and soil of tribal lives just lies under these planes.

Textures of the History

Most of his works resemble an ancient manuscript or a historical drawing. The colours are rusty- that can give back us the feel of ancientness. They are, In a way the interpretations of history as a visual narrative. The sepia toned images used in print media have a classical - royal look. But here a rewriting occurs. The ancient look of his works does not glorify anything. It showcases the dark sides of the history, with the altered view point and focus on the oppressed.

The Green maps

The origin and evolution of Human race underlies in his works. It moves around the subtle planes of hunting, violence, battles and invasions-the cuts and wounds on the body of the globe. Human existence in nature becomes its central point. The battles and hunting on the planet defines its vision. It is a narration of the dark -bloody history of wounds, which were carved on the body of the species. And it is the story of horrifying enjoyments of modern man who sailed his ships to finds the unexplored continents and indigenous tribes. It enquires how the evolution of human race becomes the evolution of the planet and how it end up with this risky stage.

Bodies of the Earth

Farming was the first man made violence, behind the birth of farms, there lies the darkness of devastation of our green forests. Formation of farms and the shelters nearer the fields were the beginning of culture. Human-Nature separation might have started from this point. This works follows it from the origin-the early farms to the present-the green houses, Precision farms and bio labs. That might be altering to the history of the planet.

The land of imaginary

His works stands somewhere between the ancient memories and the Phantasmagorical imaginations. The species from the first stage of evolution - the plants, creepers, insects and animals are mix up with the modern-the buildings, human beings, instruments and weapons. That organic world cowls or flies above, below or across the buildings and the farms. Like in a microscopic view, the subtle form of a vegetable cell appears. Black men and soil is being hurt. Like the Jurassic age animals, huge insects appear. Those are like fixing a long string from the ancientness of archaeological memories to the present-day reality. It is the imagination of the earth. It is in the Green forms of post humanist art which hates the place where it has reached (remembers his work-I hate what I have become). These works are unfaithful to humans, it knows the absurdity in it, and announces a new green wisdom and it’s a key to future. He cognitionally assimilates a vocabulary of green aesthetics.