Policeman-turned-painter exhibits his love for nature

NT Correspondent
Bengaluru:

A student of Kalamandir School of Arts, painting had always been a part of Varnam Narayanaswamy’s life. But it was something he almost gave up owing to his busy schedule as a policeman. It was when his childhood friend Sai Manohar returned from the US, set up a studio in Indiranagar and motivated him to pursue painting again that his passion for painting was reignited.

That spark has now turned into a full fledged art show and has inspired him to open up his own gallery - The Varnam Gallery in Whitefield. “Sai nurtures rural and physically handicapped artists in his studio. He had asked me to come every weekend and use his facilities in my free time but I was unable to do it. It was on a visit to my mother’s village Motaganahalli near Magadi a few years ago that I found a few jewel beetles in the field. These had been a huge part of my childhood and sparked something in my imagination and I got to work on these paintings,” says Varnam.

It was an easy task though because jewel beetles are an endangered species and very little information is available about it. But as luck would have it, they met Vasuki Belavadi, an entomologist from GKVK who helped them uncover the true nature of the beetle.

About how he finds time to paint in the middle of working as a policeman Varnam explains ”I wake up at 3:30 am every morning and start painting with imagery that's drawn from my dreams. I work till 7 am, which is when I go to work. After work I have an early dinner then spend time with my paintings, sitting among them mediation. This inspires me to get up the next day and start working again.”

Having made over 150 paintings, he knows the Jewel Beetle so well that he could draw a sketch in a few minutes. His objective with the show is to reconnect youngsters who probably would never see these beetles in the city with the beauty that exists in nature.

In order to do so he has even made a painting of Beetle Woman a superhero inspired by the jewel beetle. The exhibition titled Jewel Beetle is on at Gallery 3 at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishad till July 7.