Site de/of Martine Quentric-Séguy

THE HINDU, Friday, April 11, 2003

Painting with telling effect

 

"EACH CHILD comes into this world with the hope that God has not lost hope in men" - Rabindranath Tagore. This and many more lines from Tagore caught the attention of artist Martine Quentric Seguy. And she used them to make a portrait of the Nobel laureate. "I wanted to do something on Tagore, for Tagore..." explains Mrs. Seguy, whose exhibition of paintings titled 'Aum and Prem' is on at the Aurodhan Art Gallery in Kuruchikuppam in Pondicherry.
Having worked for a long time with calligraphy in Arabic, Chinese and other languages, writing down these lines came naturally to her... She has used calligraphy in another painting too - a mirror with the words 'Who am I' written in different languages on the frame. "It is what Ramana Maharishi of Thiruvannamalai would ask to those who came to him, to search for. That philosophy of finding out the "I" attracted me," she says. Interested in Indian philosophy and Vedanta, she has read a lot of books and studied under a Guru in Rishikesh.
Having read a lot in Indian philosophy since she was just 21, she has written several books and tales based on Vedanta. Not content with just writing tales, she tells them too. With appropriate gestures and expressions, she tells tales with the ease of a
person who has been doing it for a long time. Her work as a psychotherapist needed to tell little stories to those who came to her for help and her patients would relate their problems with the characters in the tales.
"One day I had a workshop on psychotherapy and in the same place there was another story telling workshop. In the intermission one of the students from the other workshop came over to my session and told one of the students here that she was
missing the story telling. To which my student said there was nothing to be missed since in my workshop there was both story telling and psychotherapy. Then the storyteller, who was surprise by my ability to tell stories, said that I should take up story telling since I was good at that. And that was how it began," she says with a smile.
She narrated a story on the day of the inauguration of the exhibition also to a gathering that comprised several important persons... Since there was a power cut at that time, she told it in the light of candles and torch lights amidst the smoke from, incense sticks.
K. R. Malkani, Lt Governor of Pondicherry, who inaugurated the exhibition by lighting incense sticks, said "When I saw this exhibition I was reminded of a line from poet Keats 'Beauty is Truth and truth is beauty' similarly with art". Deeply appreciating the work of the artist and her story telling talent, he said such painting exhibitions were valuable additions to the cultural life of the city of Pondicherry.
The paintings on show include a few on Aum and Prem, since that is the title of the exhibition. Asked how the concept of Aum and Prem evolved, she explains, "For a long time the two used to be my signature, then they just grew to become part of the canvas." Lord Shiva and Lord Ganesha as Omkara, forms in meditation with a Guru sloka outlining it, Christ crucified due to all the dirt in the world and a whole lot of beautiful and meaningful paintings are there for visitors to the gallery. On how she began painting, she said she knew how to hold a paint brush even before she knew to read and write. And after that the association with the canvas and colours have continued. "My father was an artist and as a child when I was bored he would ask me to take the brush," she recalls.

By Deepa H. Ramakrishnan

Photo: T. Singaravelou : Telling a tale to a fit audience.

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