Born in 1965, Roy Mathew Thottam has an educational concotion of being graduation in economics , post graduations in folk lore (MA in Folklore, M S University, Thirunelveli) and Fine Arts (MA in Fine Art- Painting, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK). Some of his important painting exhibitions are: 2003- German Lutheran Church, Delhi, 2008- Sydney Cooper Art Gallery, Canterbury, UK 2008- St. Katharine Hospital art Gallery, Unna, Germany 2010- Church Art galleries in Munich, Gottingen, Frankfurt , Aachen in Germany 2008 – Canterbury Art Fair 2008, England (group show) 2012- Embassy of Hungry, New Delhi (group show of Art i) 2011- Kerala Lalitha Kala Academy , Trissur (group show of Art i) 2014 – ‘The Quest’, painting exhibition, Durbar art Gallery, Kochi He has conducted many art workshops and art appreciation courses. He wrote many columns and articles on art in various periodicals and publications and is editor for a literary and cultural magazine- ‘Ezhuthu’. He has also written ‘A study on Kerala church murals’, and contributed articles on Kerala Church mural tradition in national and international publications. Artist’s Statement – Artistic Process ‘Art is not about art’ said British artist Cecil Collins. Art is about everything and about nothing. It is there in our life in both ordinary and extraordinary realms. I am interested in the psychic and spiritual process involved in creative activity. There is an urge in everybody to get in touch with our real ‘self’ and to give expression to it. For me it is a journey towards the ultimate freedom of the ‘Self’ which I consider as a spiritual process. Spiritual is that impulse within us to transcend ourselves and our experiences; and an urge to go beyond the obvious to the ‘true and pure’. Art itself is a process of going beyond. ‘The vocation of the artist is to create vision and the purpose of vision is to awaken man’s real self, for in art there is a hidden inviolate instinct for freedom, for eternity’ (Cecil Collins). Now a day the modern world has made us too false to ourselves. The individual has lost identity in the post modern society and is faced with inner chaos and vacuum. It is the challenge of modern man to search true self in between these realities; as Donald Kuspit says,‘ to make art is to be caught in a trap- in a vicious closed circle of creative birth and death- the rebirth of authentic selfhood and the living death of self falsification’ (Kuspit, Signs of Psyche in Modern adn Post Modern Art, 1993, p. 178). Artist’s inner world of feelings and emotions, at times conflicting and complementary, become more important than any subject. Art transforms crisis into creative freedom, it becomes a life giving force. It is a process of liberating our Self from the social disguises and pretensions, revealing it in all its expressive nakedness. Expressions with certain madness reveal the primitive depth of the psyche.
Rev.Dr.K.M.George born in1946 October 11. Now he is the Principal of the Orthodox Theological Seminary in Kottayam. After completing his college education in SB College Changanasserry and CMS College Kottayam, he studied theology at Orthodox Theological Seminary and Serampore University. He obtained a Master’s degree from Louvain and a Doctorate from Paris. He was Professor at the Bossuet Ecumenical Institute in Geneva and served as moderator WCC programme committee 1998-2006. He was also interested in painting and studied painting from the ‘Ecole de beaux arts’ fine arts school, Paris. Rev.Dr.K.M.George has in-depth knowledge in many languages-French, Syriac and Latin. His books in Malayalam and English are widely read, appreciated and recognized. An erudite scholar, thinker and writer, Dr. K.M.George has published a number of books and articles in English and Malayalam besides several speeches and presentations made in international forums. Some of his major works are: God-Language: A Patristic Perspective; Ethics of Just Peace-An Orthodox Perspective from an Asian Context; Gospel and Culture; Why Turn to East for Prayer; Wheel within a Wheel: An Eco-Irenic Understanding of God’s Earth; The Threat of HIV/AIDS: Some Theological Considerations; and Guru Gregorios; Irupatthonnam Noottandile Vichara Silppikal;Aadhunika Vichara Silppikal; Silent Roots; Pravaasathinte Naalukal; Janathayude Prakasam
