PON RAGHUNATHAN

Bio

“An artist of today is a part of the heritage of the future. But what is the future without the past? My culture is in distress. It is dying. At least I wish our future generation would see what their forefathers were. My works are kind of documentation. I feel at home doing so. I feel joy like portraiting my mother.”

Pon Raghunathan was born in 1937. He was trained in the art of painting at the Government College of Arts & Crafts in Chennai. He has been the Founder Treasurer for the Contemporary Painters & Writers Association and a Founder Member of the Museum Club in Salem, Tamil Nadu.

Raghunathan’s works are of by native brush. Of any artist from this area, he may be said to be a painter of soil. The land of his inspiration and depiction has plenty of villages, mountains up to 7000 ft high, rivers long and small and a lengthy history of more than two thousand years. Raghunathan selects live themes from these villages and some from their tradition, which are under constant attack by modern electronic media, as his source of art inspiration and background. He uses modern colours, but shades of his canvases are layers of time and age. His works often remind us of our old masters- in lines, in colour compositions and in the synthesis of both. They are like the mountains that speak volumes in silence.

His paintings are being collected in the U.S.A and in India. The colours and strokes in his paintings guide through the remote villages in India. The artist resides and paints in Salem, Tamil Nadu. He is also a poet.