Yuvan Bothisathuvar once painted signboards in Chennai. Today he is an artist who has showcased his works made with wood, steel, paper, cardboard, paper-cutter and recycled paper in Scotland and is now displaying them here. By Darpan Mago
like many signboard artists in Tamil Nadu, Yuvan Bothisathuvar lived his life painting signboards for South Indian films and political parties. After working for numerous hours and spending major part of his day drawing public figures, he only managed a salary of Rs600, working for six months. Besides having unstable income, the man has gone through a challenging life. He married in the year 2001 but his wife committed suicide. He remarried in the year 2007 to take care of his new-born daughter, who unfortunately suffers from the Down Syndrome. Despite all odds, Yuvan Bothisathuvar never gave up his passion for drawing and painting. The artist is displaying his work at Art District in an exhibition titled The Final Illusion.
Talking about his early days, Yuvan says, “I started drawing from my science textbook when I was in class 12. All my classmates used to come to me for their science project drawings. I pursued BFA and later MFA from a reputed arts college in Chennai. My friend once told me about emerging artist of the year award and I applied. It is an initiative by Bestcollegeart.com and Glenfiddich to promote emerging artists by providing them a platform to showcase their works. I won the award and represented India at the Glenfiddich Artists in Residence programme. I collaborated with seven other artists and worked at The Glenfiddich distillery in Scotland.”
Scotland provided a new direction to Yuvan. He decided to stop making signboards. “I tried my hands at material art for about 12 years. While living in Scotland, I added new spectrums to my imagination. One of my art titled About my Experience in Scotland describes my experiences and emotions in an entirely new place. It has a Glenfiddich bottle turned upside down with its cork resembling an exclamation mark. Tamil newspapers are used as its background as my own expression,” informs Yuvan.
Another art piece titled Alive is made up of stainless steel coins put on a plywood board with steel nails. “like the name suggests this artwork is always alive. No matter what objects are before it, the glaring reflection only makes them lively. You may notice that there are no steady colours in it. It is the light which is pure and colours are reflected from different media in the surroundings. This work is experiential in nature,” explains Yuvan.
The artist is exhibiting many other artworks made with materials like wood, steel, paper, cardboard, paper-cutter and recycled magazine paper. These extraordinary and experimental works have varying themes like concealed emotions, mind illusions, human experience and equality.