was born in 1974 at Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala, in a family with an artistic legacy. His grandfather O.V. Achari was a renowned sculptor- cum- artist. Ranjith Raghupathy started experimenting with his skills in various media from his childhood days. He had started participating in several group shows and art camps in his school days and conducted his first successful solo exhibition in 1997 at Thiruvananthapuram with his fifty canvases soon after he completed three years Diploma in Fine Arts. His works are accepted nationally and internationally. He displays his paintings in various private collections in India and abroad. He conducted twelve solo exhibitions in different parts of the country and participated in several group shows and won many awards.
Ranjith Raghupathy published a book ‘Beyond the words’ in 2011.
He had written and directed 10 short films and a feature film that has screened in several international film festivals and won many awards.
Ranjith Raghupathy’s works reflects his fascination for the human situation, the untangling of inextricable philosophies and the psychology of man’s existence. According to the artist what he tries to achieve in all his works is a demystification of the reality and established icons, and juxtaposes it with what he considers the anthropological descent of man. Experimenting with various media, trying to create a textural identity in his works, and adopting different techniques to transfer onto canvas the images in his mind’s eye, Ranjith displays restraint.
In some works, the artist has taken the work out of the confines of a well-defined space by working on sheets with unfinished outlines. The effect achieved is one of irregularity, yet set into a frame, the work acquires a special look about it. Working in vibrant shades of red, blue, indigo and crimson and moving with equal ease to the dull shades of brown and yellow, the frames are arresting.
One cannot miss the predominance red in his collection. Ranith explains, “Red fascinates me, My previous exhibition, the ‘Red and white series’ was in a way an exercise i purging myself of this obsessive influence of red. Even now it enters my works and the catharsis is complete only when I translate my urge on to the canvas.”
The human figure, in most of the paintings has an imprint of the prehistoric and the Renaissance image, to portray the tension between illusion and reality. Despairing about the no-win situation, that man finds himself in, is something that haunts this artist. Commenting on the frequent use of empty canvas texture in some of his works, he says the whole process of freezing on canvas this white shade lends starkness to the work.
Unfettered by the baggage of a structured academic approach, the artist experiments and succeeds in creating an impact through his palette expression.
