Lines of satire and wit

Curator Manvinder Dawer and eminent artist Dr Laxman Aelay present an exhibition of popular cartoonist Shankar Pamarthy showcasing two decades of political art that include his cartoons, caricatures and drawings. A comprehensive book of Shankar will be launched during the exhibition.Shankar Pamarthy was born in Nalgonda, of newly formed Telangana state.

He never studied academic art but admired fine arts right from his childhood and began doodling at the age of ten years. Soon after his graduation, he started working as a drawing teacher and later on, he moved to the capital city of Hyderabad at the age of 28 in order to shape his career as a journalist/political cartoonist and joined in a leading vernacular daily magazine. He is presently working at Saakshi.

Writing about Shankar’s style, artist, critic and art historian Anand Gadapa mentions - A fine quality of colour pencil rendering is dexterously done by fragmenting and mutilating but with accurate characteristic features, as the physiognomies evidently show a faultless visualization of the gifted artist. He does not believe in any sort of stereotypical exaggeration instead captures the soul of the character with a distinct style that he developed over the years. Be it Mother Teresa, M.S Subbu Lakshmi or Charlie Chaplin the naturalistic features are duly captured, and the mannerism is attained.

The forms transgress the idea of provocation, satire and criticism as they are pretty, adorable and thoughtful depictions of reality. These remarkable renderings on paper reveal Shankar’s unfathomable artistic insights, his natural skill of capturing the essence and his philosophical interpretation of the sub consciousness while re-presenting the spoofing. The selected spoof imagery of popular personalities is only to show their pride, their entity and significance in our culture and society.

He adds, “While doing so, he brings up a sort of a fearless distortion without losing the likeness of the physiognomies negotiating with real and surreal.”Curator Manvinder shares, “Shankar Pamarthy is a phenomenon. With his multi-faceted personality and versatility, he is a curious discovery for us. I met Shankar a couple of years back and had an opportunity to have a look at the body of beautiful caricatures, political cartoons and scribbles done by him.

Later when I requested him to create a few caricatures of celebrities for me, he brought forth marvellouscollection of satirical depictions of famous sport persons, movie stars, and businessmen, exclusively produced for me. Overwhelmed by the response to his curious art, I spoke to Laxman Aelayand we both decided to exhibit a body of his artworks, all that were evolved over a period of time.