Quarterly Wildlife Artist Feature-Ramesh Jayaraj

AWN are glad to start our quarterly wildlife artist interviews starting this October.

Name of the Artist: Ramesh Jayaraj

Location: Mysore,Karnataka,India

Date: October 7th 2017

May i know when and how your journey toward art started? What inspired you to get into it? 

Right from school days was interested in drawings. Could draw anything the drawing teacher showed on the board. Even science record would have perfect lab drawings. Friends would ask me to make their lab drawings too.  In college would occupy last bench and draw portraits during boring lecturers. After graduation in Bsc and PGDBA, got into family business of silk yarn dealers.  But spare time would naturally fill up empty spaces of news papers or bits of paper lying around with doodles. 

Then realized there is some force within me to become artist. Started pursuing to learn art through books . Wanted to learn through academic way of learning art.  Learnt portraits, anatomy , composition rules more of realistic kind of art.  Started to learn oil painting too. Learnt the color principles  in very disciplined method. Value scales, color temperatures , receding and acceding colors were few techniques built up painstakingly.

What kind of medium do you like to work with the most and why?

Love water colors most. But it has  proved very difficult medium. Oil colors has been always my forte. Being slow drying medium it is good to manipulate, continue working till satisfaction, and finally achieve the perfect chosen chroma of the subjects. Pencil, Conte, color pencils are other media which I have worked extensively. Had held one man show in exclusive pencil drawings where most of works were picked up the art collectors and few by the gallery owners themselves.

How did you learn this artform? Do you have a Mentor?

Never been to any art school. Nor got to meet any  artist during my budding years. Always learnt art within the confine of my studio and through vast collection of my personal books.  Been collecting books on art since 1991 and today I have built a very good personal library on subjects media and various techniques.

Even though was painting and drawing any subject holding my fancy, wildlife became my favorite subject . as for color richness and drawing accuracy was greatly influenced by Boris Vallejo , the fantasy art illustrator.  Buying art books become one more passion and started collecting art books based on artist and general style. Do own most of Boris Vallejo books.  

One day as I was on my morning jog saw this bird darting over the lake like an arrow. Followed it and went deeper to know the bird and its character. Got to know it was known as Small blue kingfisher. Felt nature could be holding many more such jewels , so started my journey as wildlife artist.  For an wildlife artists nature gives good challenge to depict the natural beauty on canvas. In the process the artist too discovers himself in relation to natural world. Would become  active in conservation efforts . would create awareness in conservation of natural resources along with its inhabitants.

Who is/are your favorite artist/artists?

There are plenty of artist whose works I look for inspiration. Not necessarily they need to be wildlife artist.  To name a few, Robert Bateman, Guy cohaleach, Dino Parvano, Manfred schatz, Rein poortvliet. Etc. Other oil painters being Pino, Clemant Kwan, Katharyn stats, Calvin liang and Tibor Nagy. The list can go on still.

What is your goal? What are your future plans?

Want to just paint more of wildlife depicting the habitants in their natural habitat. Cut across political boundaries to learn more about wildlife from different parts of the world.

Your views on need for a society for nature artists in India and what can be achieved through such community for artists?

When I started painting wildlife in India in 1991, I was laughed at. It was labeled as calendar art. I was told by a critic that I don’t get encouragement as artist at critic level.  But was into painting wildlife not for name or money. Wanted to catch the challenging expressions of my animal and birds. Was least interested in looking for appreciation at critic levels.  Now I am seeing many budding artists getting into wildlife.  Today I am recognized as wildlife artist world over.  I was the 4th Indian to be interviewed in an art magazine called international artist. This magazine is voted as the best art magazine in the world.

India is a planet in itself. We need to show our natural heritage through art to world over. Show to the world that environment concern starts from our home. We Indians worship plants and animals. There was never a need to import the idea of conservation from foreigners . We need to start a movement through art cutting across India, to create awareness of conservation among people.

Some additional information

Have painted more than 300 paintings and are in collection across the world.

Been honored by a couple of environmental organizations in India.

Have done bird illustrations to projects in IISC

Dr Raman Sukumar’s book “ The living elephants” has my illustrations of elephants of early evolution.

Trivandrum Rajbhavan has a couple of paintings in their permanent collections.

Have recognition as wildlife photographer too.  Many of my photographs of wildlife have appeared in many magazines and wildlife books

Have been interviewed in many newspapers ,magazines  and TV channels

Held very few exhibitions in Bangalore, Trivandrum , Chennai and Delhi. In couple of exhibitions the gallery  owners themselves acquired most of the pairings

Now have study collectors visiting my studio regularly.

We would like to kindly thank Dear Ramesh Jayaraj for actively contributing his artworks to our group and taking time to patiently answer to all other queries. Wishing him more success! 

We'll be back again with another interview next quarter! Until then, watchout for artworks and discussions on our Facebook group! Artists for Wildlife and Nature