Sivasubramaniam Kajendren, May I Wait for You, 2023
Mysticism, decay and hope culminate in reflecting the mood of Sivasubramaniam Kajendren’s exhibition at Paradise Road Galleries till the 29th of June, 2023. The distorted figures; the women like angels in their sheer white, translucent nightwear and grandiose heads that stay so still and silent while a bird pecks its surface, invoke a reverberating sensation across the walls as one walks along the aisles. The theme of Siva’s art remains as a therapeutic catharsis, as one can imagine when one gets to know the story behind the artist. He has confidence that through hope, even the most damaged or scarred person can endure the hardships and struggles they face in life. As a Catholic, Siva believes that there is nothing that God will test us to delve into that we, as an individual, cannot grapple with.
Born in Mullaitivu, Sri Lanka during the 30-year-old civil war, Siva lost his sisters. Thereafter, he was faced with the dark repercussions of the tsunami in 2004 during which, he lost his mother. In conversation, he shared that his mind still dreams and yearns for those he and so many others have lost during these horrific times. The almost black, but in fact very dark blue of the figures depict those who passed away. The sameness in the faces show us the multitude of unidentified missing youths, women, children, fathers and soldiers. The bright okra yellow to orange of the flat monochrome backgrounds represent the Tamil people in our flag, flattened and bleeding into the unknown. The paintings are about the wives and the children who were left scared and scarred from the war, from the tsunami without knowledge of what happened to their loved ones. Are they in a prison still, somewhere paralyzed in an unknown hospital? Are they dead? Nobody seems to know.
