An Artistic Twist to Tamil Proverbs

Isn’t it incredible, how new-age designs blend spectacularly with antiquity and create something that binds the exquisiteness of both the eras?

Scriptures and letter play an indispensable role in any culture, as they are considered the building blocks of the civilization and it is evident that letter forms have lent languages a tangible form since ages.

While prehistoric scripts like Brahmi, Bhattiprolu alphabet and the Kadamba alphabet only remain registered in historical archives, most of the present-day scripts roughly centre around Devanagari, Gurmukhi, Gujarati, Bengali, Oriya, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Urdu and Sindhi.

Fascinated by the richness of the such script and vernacular proverbs, Tamil Nadu-based Sneha Suresh who is an art student in Bengaluru has put together an artwork that is bound to intrigue you with its inventive concept of integrating re-imagined Tamil letter forms and timeless proverbs under a single canvas.

When we ask Sneha about her creation and how she came up with this idea, she says, “This project called Inaipu (means fusion in Tamil) was done as a part of my final year pre-thesis project. My role in this project was based on the amalgamation of the oral tradition and visual culture, metaphors, material culture and symbols of Tamil Nadu while depicting a shortlisted set of Tamil proverbs through re-imagined letter forms. These illustrations were screen-printed on paper after which I put them together to form an artist’s book and a series of screen-printed posters.”

Take, for instance, the proverb (above picture), Ennaikudathai suttrum, erambupola, which means, Like ants accumulating around a pot of oil, which hints at money/other resources and greed.

“Here, I’ve used a part of the letter form [ku] that will be visible if the viewer squints a little. The image shows the top view of a pot and ants around it,” Sneha explains.

“The colour palette is inspired by the Gopurams in the south and the beaches of TamilNadu and Goa. As a part of my research I also documented a lot of my grandmothers’ sarees, the colours of which found their way into Inaipu,” adds the budding designer.

Being a Tamilian and brought up in Goa,she initially used these proverbs as a path to get an idea about where I come from and an essence of how her ancestors must have lived. “My mother, always wanted me to learn to read and write Tamil and I unfortunately never felt the urge to learn it. Now, as a visual communication designer I inculcated the interested in scripts and letter forms and used the script to my advantage (since it gives me a more non-biased perspective that helps me look at ‘text as image’) and hence I decided to go ahead and use letter forms to depict Tamil proverbs,” reminisces Sneha.

Further, she credits her grandmothers for being the driving force behind the project who,constantly used proverbs while conversing, building Sneha’s affinity toward these short phrases that have so much meaning attached to them. “These highly exaggerated phrases manage to put across a point with a lot of meaning along with a humorous twist,” says the young talent.

“As for translation, my mother took a significant measure out of her busy work life to help me out,” she fondly recalls.

During her first year at Srishti designing school, Sneha showcased her entrepreneurial skills by launching ‘Tucksac’, an online store that offers you ethnic roll-up stationery pouches, bags, customised laptop sleeves and slings.

Involving techniques such as screen printing and dyeing that she had learnt in college along with branding and packaging, Sneha set out to design sustainably ethical accessories with fabrics and avoids the use of plastic and leather. She good market in college itself.

“Though I have my own brand, I would love to gain some work experience and be able to contribute to a workplace and eventually have a studio or workspace of my own in Goa, which is something that I’ve always dreamt of having,” concludes Sneha.