Murals Matter

- Divya GS

Till Kalamandalam Bindhulekha, a Mohiniattam dancer, completed a mural painting on the walls of the VadakurumbaKavu Temple in Thrissur district of Kerala in 2003, the medium was a male bastion. In fact, she broke into this bastion without even realising that she was doing that. “I knew women rarely engaged in mural paintings. But mine was not a purposeful attempt to change the traditional ways. I came to mural painting accidentally,” she says. It took two years for her to complete the work. And she had to work almost all days since 2001 to complete it. “While doing murals on the temple walls using natural colours, the artist usually chants shlokas. The sanctity of the temple premises oozes into your mind. The feeling that one is close to the divinity is supreme. The reward is more than work satisfaction or money. It’s like a spiritual journey,” says Bindhulekha. “Being a debutante, I never had the courage to go ahead with the big project at Vadakurumba Kavu Temple. It was with wavering mind and trembling hand that I started to draw, but it happened,” she adds. Though she had associated with some other temple works too, she never let her creative self to confine to temple walls. She had conducted several painting exhibitions in different parts of the country. A synthetic blend of traditional murals and modern styles makes her art stand out. In ‘Voyage of Dreams’, a series of works showing the individuality of the pa