Campaign is Kurian’s canvas

Oct 30, 2012 - Cris

As a 15-year-old schoolboy, he raised slogans and waged a fight to solve the drinking water problem in Kuttanad, and then to demand more boats in the flood-ridden Kavalam Panchayat where he grew up. Social work, to Thomas Kurian, was both an obsession and a serious pursuit in his life.

So, when he took a brush in his hands, the images that came to his mind were about the water problem, food scarcity and attacks on nature and environment.
“My paintings were all about Kuttanad and its problems,” says Thomas. His Concrete Harvester is a painting that depicts how every development project ends up a concrete entity. Another painting, Cats During Famine, is about a house of a farmer drowning in a famine. “I found that a painting would more effectively convey a message than a hundred speeches,” he says.
So, soon, he became part of a painting camp against alcohol and drug abuse. Thomas would also run about to organise rehabilitation camps for the farming community whose houses drown in the Monsoon floods of June. His campaign would continue, “till they get government funds to make new homes,” says he.

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