Where the doors are always open – Gowri S, THE HINDU

The simplistically carved mauve-coloured door opens to a trip down memory lane. Humble verandas with a brass container or two, and a backyard from which peeps a parked bicycle and a saree, hung out to dry — A sight so common in villages, where the doors always remain open.

For KR Santhana Krishnan or as many call him, ‘Door Santhanam’, , these doors open to memories that he holds dear. Eighteen years and more than 800 doors later, his work remains as poignant as ever, leaving every person walking in to his show, Behind the Doors, reminiscing about their own ancestral homes and life in them.

“Many picture their grandparents sitting in one of those verandas,” he says, pointing to a wall with over 50 small-sized doors — with colourful elements that almost immediately remind one of houses they have chanced upon, in South Indian villages. One can almost hear the morning ‘Suprabhatham’ or see an elderly maami in a madisar, drawing kolam outside the door.

“As long as it doesn’t get boring, either for you or me, I will continue doing this,” says the artist who is displaying his work in the city after a break of seven years. For him, the experience of creating these doors, is validated when someone travels back in time, most often to his small courtyard in a distant village. “An artist doesn’t need anything more.”

Where the doors are always open

“Have you noticed that nowadays, in urban settings, these elements don’t count?”— the artist hailing from Kumbakonam (from where most of his works are inspired) asks me with concern. Adding to this, he observes, “In the houses that I came across while growing up, the doors would always remain open. These are the re-creations of the sights that I collected from years of riding a bicycle through those streets.”

In fact, the very first door that he drew in watercolour, has an interesting story behind it. The artist, when he was doing his undergraduate degree in Kumbakonam, had tried to imitate the painting of a door by Sanjay Bhattacharya. The work, to his surprise, garnered a lot of praise from his teachers. “Since then, on my way home from college, I would observe the houses that passed my way,” he recalls. Decades later, he still continues to do this. This, according to him, is part of his research. “I sometimes, drop in to houses and ask families if I could take a look around. Most of them let me in.”

Where the doors are always open

Cultural markers

On the opposite wall, stand two life-size doors, one, with a deliberately dirtied red-coloured wooden surface. As you move closer, the detailing takes the fore. In some doors, the glass panel on the top, has been replaced with Tanjore paintings and figures of gods. “These are new… As years go by, more elements need to be added right? Otherwise, it will be boring,” he adds.

The set of small doors too, have intricate detailing which can be found on the glass panels. And most of these glass pieces, featuring varied intends and designs, were collected by the artist over the years. Santhana “ In the olden days, afternoon naps on the thinnai were considered sacred. Which is why, these panels are covered with coloured papers and cloth pieces. They didn’t want the sunlight to disturb them.”

And as we move closer to these doors, we find the old number/new number, polio drop census and EB markings — elements that are specific to the day and age. More so, with this exhibition, the artist has gone a step forward with three-dimensional doors with a box structure that draws focus to the depth of the paintings inside.

Would he consider moving into any other subject or style later? He nods in uncertainty. “Everyone recognises me as Door Santhanam, ” he says adding that he intends to give future generations a tour of the past, through his works. Be it the architecture that features inside the frames, the utensils that peep out, or the carved elements on the door — these cultural markers cannot be ignored even though they might not be seen in a few years.

The exhibition will be on till January 5, at Focus Art Gallery, Egmore.