Drunk on Lines - A self-taught artist reveals his quest for expression

The lines move up and down, lyrical and evocative. Smoothly flowing into figures and shapes, the lines finally, tell a complete story. The lines are A V Ilango’s and the story is Ponniyin Selvan, Tamil writer Kalki’s legendary historical novel, that’s now been translated into English by Karthik Narayan.
For a lonely soul whose childhood was filled with rustic colours - the endless green fields of Gobichettypalayam, reds and browns of village festivals and more - the line, according to Ilango, “has been chasing me.”
The line formed the theme of his life, despite a career as a maths professor. The line chased and turned him inwards till it emerged from his brushes with a life of its own. “I have always had the feeling that something in me wants to express itself,” says the self-taught artist, “The feeling expressed itself in art.”
His first ‘teacher’ in art was the shopkeeper in Poona from whom he purchased the five basic colours in oil paints. “He told me to use linseed oil as the medium,” laughs Ilango, “And that was the only technical information I got. I had no formal training.”
What began as a quest for expression turned into a serious vocation, with active support from his wife Chandra, herself a professer of French.
“Before I had my first exhibition,” says Ilango, “I had a dream that I would become very famous. But that was not to be - it was a bubble.” The real world brought him back to earth very fast with a realisation that one could not live on art.
All the while, the search for the elusive ‘line’ remained. “Till ’85-’86 the line never came to me,” he laughs, “The in ’86, there it was and then, the line began to chase me.”
Ilango, in his own words, became drunk on the ‘line’. It formed the pattern of his life and became his theme songs. The passion for the line comes through in his series of drawings that focus on ‘bulls’ and in his illustrations for Ponniyin Selvan.
The artist had found his niche.