P.S. Jalaja is constantly fascinated by people, crowds in particular. The crowd as an organic entity forms the backbone of Jalaja’s repertoire. Some of her canvases have thousands of people in them. “Each person in a crowd has a different expression, mannerism, skin colour … yet beyond all that, they are just human,” says the artist, who is currently working on a series titled ‘Boat People’, which is a take on the plight of refugees.

Her preoccupation with people perhaps makes her a non-fastidious worker. “I don’t look for ideal conditions to work. For that matter, I don’t even have a ‘formal studio’,” she says. She works in the living room of her two-storey rented house at Kochupalli near Udayamperoor. Even that space, she says, is not her own. It is shared by her partner Jasinther Roke Feller, who is a sculptor and her sister, Jaya, an artist and sometimes, Jaya’s cats and dog, too. When friends visit, she works while talking to them.

Adjacent to the living room is the kitchen, where her aunt, who lives with them, cooks. “So, even as I work, there are people walking in and out, sounds and smells from the kitchen and the TV which is on most of the time. I work amidst all that.” As a practice, she works 10 to 15 hours a day. If she has undertaken a project, work could extend up to three days. Jalaja’s famed work, ‘Tug of War’, which was showcased at the first Kochi Muziris Biennale in 2012, was 30-foot-tall, four-and-a-half-foot wide.

The stress of spending long hours at work sometimes manifests as a nagging pain in the neck and as sinusitis, but Jalaja prefers to ignore them.

Jalaja is surrounded by art, even daily conversations revolve around art. “I see that as an advantage I have, being around people who understand “my language”. Though our styles are different, Jas, Jaya and I tend to agree on the basic artistic essence. I believe I benefit from my interactions with them.”

Having completed her Masters in Fine Art from RLV College of Music and Fine Arts, Tripunithura, Jalaja started working with dry pastels. For about three years, she worked with just dry pastels. “When you work in a medium continuously, it yields itself to you totally,” she says. Later, she moved on to watercolour, but she treated watercolour in an opaque manner. “An artist knows what medium can convey his/her idea best.”

As a child, Jalaja used to draw and paint. She credits her father, who was a carpenter, for sharpening her artistic instinct. As he worked, he would involve the children and assign them small tasks, which she believes, went a long way in developing her imagination. Growing up in a small village Keezhillam in Perumbavoor in the 80s, Jalaja says her father gave her and her three siblings a lot of freedom. He insisted she complete her studies and find a job. She completed her B.Com and only then went on to pursue art at RLV.

Her love for art deepened soon. While doing her BFA, Jalaja’s friends organised an informal show of her works titled ‘Ray’, which won her Lalit Kala Akademi’s “student award”. In 2008, she won the Honorable Mention Award in a State exhibition of art organised by the Akademi. The State award came her way in 2009. Jalaja has worked in BMB Gallery, Mumbai, from where she got a chance to participate in the Guangzhou art fair in 2010, where she displayed her work ‘Bittersweet History’, a 10×5 watercolour work depicting historically eminent personalities in a rally. Jalaja has showcased her work at the Prague biennale in 2011 (a watercolour on policemen from about 40 countries firing at a few ordinary people).

Her reading and travels serve as inspiration. She recalls her journey to Italy as part of a residency programme with fondness. “Journeys teach you so many things. The things and people you see add to your visual library and they come back to you in so many different ways,” she says. She carries a notepad and pencil wherever she goes.

Jalaja’s works are intricately layered with multiple images on a single canvas. “Even as a student, I was interested in human anatomy. Gradually, it developed into a desire to look at the human predicament through my works. Even as I paint a person, it is not just a portrait of him/her, it reveals his culture, history and identity. The being says it all without saying anything at all.”

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Anasuya Menon / Kochi – March 04th, 2016