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N. N. Rimzon (1957), is an eminent Indian artist known primarily for his highly symbolic and enigmatic sculpture. The fragmentation of society, individual alienation, and archetypal depictions of the human experience predominate his work. His metal, fiberglass and stone sculptures have won him international acclaim, though in recent years his confidently composed drawings have gained recognition.

Rimzon studied sculpture at the College of Fine Arts, Thiruvananthapuram. He later joined Maharaja Sayajirao Universtity (M.S.U.), Baroda, where he was considered among the best of the upcoming generation of artists that stemmed from M.S.U. luminaries such as Jyoti Bhatt and Bhupen Khakhar. In 1989 he earned his MA with distinction from the Royal College of Art, London.

As a young man Rimzon experienced the widespread political upheaval that accompanied Indira Gandhi’s Emergency during the mid-1970s. This was one factor that moved him away from narrative painting to experimentation with conceptually motivated sculpture. Rimzon concentrated on themes that depicted humanity’s entrapment and anguish in a hostile environment that was of man’s own making. In The Inner Voice (1992), a sculpted nude figure, cast in fiberglass, is displayed with its back against the wall and surrounded by a semicircle of cast iron swords. In Speaking Stones (1998), a crouching nude figure uses its hands to both hold its head and shield its eyes. The figure is surrounded by naturally sharp stones, which rest on photographs depicting massacres, demolitions, and other acts of communal violence that have been part of India’s more recent history.

Born in the Indian state of Kerala, Rimzon’s artistic vocabulary finds root in symbols derived from the rural landscape of southern India: the village compound, the palm tree, the temple, the forest pathway and the handmade canoe. In Rimzon’s drawings he further develops the themes that are found in his sculpture. Charcoal and dry pastel is used with a simple grace of line to create an often eerie and evocative stillness. This pristine tranquility seems to be intruded upon by symbols such as the sword and the felled tree. A sense of tragedy or alienation underlies depictions of what might otherwise be thought to be rural idylls. Rimzon’s later works seem as much concerned with ecological threats as with communal aggression.

N. N. Rimzon’s work can be found in the collections of The National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi and Mumbai, The Chester Herwitz Trust, Massachusetts, U.S.A., The Foundation for Indian Artists, Amsterdam, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney.

References

1. Amrita Jhaveri, A Guide to 101 Modern and Contemporary Indian Artists, India Book House, 2005 ISBN 81-7508-423-5
2. Chandran T. Payyanur, N.N. Rimzon, Kashi Art Gallery, 2005
3. Ashish Radadhyaksha, Contemporary Art In Baroda, Tulika Publishers, 1997, ISBN 81-85229-04-X
4. Anoop Skaria and Dorrie Younger, N.N. Rimzon, Kashi Art Gallery, 2005
5. Amrita Jhaveri, A Guide to 101 Modern and Contemporary Indian Artists, India Book House, 2005 ISBN 81-7508-423-5
6. Chandran T. Payyanur, N.N. Rimzon, Kashi Art Gallery, 2005
7. Karen Miller-Lewis, Back to Natur, Art India, Quarter III, 2007
8. Anoop Skaria and Dorrie Younger, N.N. Rimzon, Kashi Art Gallery, 2005

External links

• Online Biography
• N.N. Rimzon on ArtNet

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