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From an artist’s point of view the cosmos is a conglomeration of beauty, colour and form. Each creation manifests the keeness and mastery of the supreme creator. An artist employs his creativity to enhance the beauty of such creations in his own style. Plato may contend that art is twice removed from reality. Yet it is the artist who interacts on the mystery of creation and parades it before the on lookers for their appreciation and evaluation. A genuine artist yearns to formulate his Creations in such a way that sensitive generations will treasure them.

J.R.Palakkal is an artist of that stature. He has matured his craftsmanship in the course of 35 long years of ardent study, trial and experimentation. Combining different strands of experience he could evolve a style exclusively his own, which may rightly be turned ‘Palakkal style’. This style emphasises form, structure and colour. The aesthetic excellence of a picture gains over nature in this style.

Artist Palakkal born into a family of artists and sculptors and learnt the a.b.c. of painting from his father.  Subsequently he was inspired by the works of great masters. He realized that his vocation was to be a painter. This led to his taking a Diploma in painting, after a course of rigorous practice under accomplished portrait painters, Devassy master and Fr. Paul chazhoor. This enabled him to imbibe the sprit of different schools of paintings, ranging from iconoclasm to post – modernism. Palakkal’s Style is classical and naturally he can not adore or admit the present developments of fine arts in Op arts, Dadaism Happening and Pluralism.

Among his pictures the famous ones are those about Mahabali, the legendary King of Kerala and those on the 32 life sketches of the great sage Aadi Sankara. The pictures on Sree Sankara are treasured in the Sanskrit University Buildings at Kalady. For the Spices Board of Kerala he produced paintings on the multifarious Spices Heritage of Kerala .Italian paintings have influenced him in a great measure. Examples of this can be witnessed in the paintings on Jesus Christ kept at Montessori School Chapel in Italy, Moses, Last Supper (In America), a landscape at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan, Lady with  the Lamp, and Goddess Saraswathy are paintings kept at the Raj Bhavan, and the paintings in South Park Hotel, Trivandrum which have attained considerable public attention. Exhibitions of his paintings have been held in England, America and Italy. All the Indian metropolises have witnessed Palakkal’s one –man –show.

Besides painting, sculpture is another field of expertise for artist Palackal. Sculptural creations, made out of wood and exhibited in his art gallery, speaks volumes of his calibre and dexterity in creating conventional wooden carvings, preserving the sublime charm of the classical style of traditional Kerala art, assimilating the innovative best from modern- trends and blending them with conventional styles such as bronze, ajantha and realism. He has made memorable works of sculpture in various kinds of rare wood such as Ebony, Devadaru, Sandalwood, Akil Rosewood, Teakwood, Mahagony and whitewood. Any lover of art who visits the Palackal Art Gallery and enjoys the paintings and sculptures will feel from the heart of heart that Palackal’s   creations are the exemplary symbols of classical realism in oil and wood.

Now he is nursing Art Galleries of his own in the Malankara Building Complex, Palayam, Trivandrum and in Papanasam, Varkala. He who was an Amateur for long has now become a Professional Artist. As Browning has put it,

“This world is no blot for us,
Nor blanks;
It means intensely and means good
To find its meaning is my meat and drink”

Connoisseurs of art who are romantically inclined will be delighted to discern the development of the soul in Palakkal’s Paintings.

Address

J.R.Palakkal,
Palakkal Art Gallery,
Malankara Building Complex,
Palayam,
Trivandrum-695034

Ph:+91 471 2475905 (9.am to 5.pm)
Res:+91 471 2281933, +91 471 2280453
E-Mail:enquiry@palakkalartgallery.com