KMB 2025: Portraying Memories of Wiped-out Views

Kochi / January 7, 2026

Kochi, Jan 07: Hues of greenery cover a large wall. Ferns, shrubs, creepers, crawlers, pepper, banana, grass spring from the brown patches of earth, their roots presumably entwined below, just as their leaves above breathe in harmony, like the people of the land do even though their homes are far apart.

RB Shajith’s acrylic, oil and water colour paintings in Coir Godown, Aspinwall House, Fort Kochi, exhibited as part of Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025 (KMB), speak of dense landscapes of Malabar that are disappearing along with the life around it. 

Though lush-looking, the large polyptych of ten panels on one wall and two small works on another cast a bleak eerie feel, ghostlike, emphasised by tiny touches of blue, purple, dull yellow and rust colours of earth. The trunks of areca palms lining the edge seem to create a barrier, a wall for the viewers, as if to say these spaces of Malabar landscapes are lost forever, a recurring motif in Shajith’s works.

Standing out is the image of a peacock, the national bird, looking lost behind a cage telling a sad tale. Peacocks have started wandering into Kerala owing to climate change and warmer climes as the wealth of green gives way to concrete jungles.

Shajith’s memories of his home in Malapattam in Kannur at the bottom of a terraced hill and the surroundings he grew up loom large in his work. “Each time I returned home I felt upset at ecosystems close to my heart missing. Our area is surrounded by water on three sides. On returning home recently, I noticed the stream, where my mother washed clothes, we fished and bathed, turned into a road. Development makes life easier, but at the cost of nature, a blessing to mankind,” said Shajith.

“After completing BFA in 2005 and MFA from Fine Arts College, Thiruvananthapuram, I have been exploring watercolours. I explored mural miniature in Kalady. Though it had limitations, I delved into Mughal miniature with its wider range. But watercolour was my medium for long studying it at the traditional level in Thalassery and broader level, through Japanese and Chinese wash painting techniques. Gradually the freedom I achieved through watercolour spurred me to attempt other mediums and I tried acrylic and oil. Oil lets us create rich colours and say more,” he said.

Shajith, who had won state awards for his watercolour landscapes, essayed bigger scales. Initially, he did a series, Awaiting, on a positive note, of hope. But the disappearing green canopies and ecological issues forced him to do Wiping Out, a series in acrylic, oil and watercolour.

“Wiping Out is a series I started two years ago after extensive research in Malabar ecosystem. The works are expressions of my thoughts, memories of plants, smell, colours, rhythms, myths, stories, and experiences of Malabar,” he said.

Pointing to his large canvas at KMB, he explained, “This is my biggest work. I found that we could go deep on larger canvases and say more.”

Shajith believes that though art is evolving and taking different forms, painting and landscapes have a way of communicating especially in the context of erasure. “Landscapes are reflections, recollections and reminders of ecological issues and the need to address them,” he said.

ENDS