"Surya Rao: Weaving Dreams with Colours and Sound."

A recent Self Portrait.

Mr. Surya Rao Pokkuluri is an octogenarian, an energetic, jubilant person, cheerful individual and is often labelled as multi-talented by his friends and relatives. He is my uncle, who incidentally shares the name of my great grandfather. He is an artist, singer, and flutist all rolled into one.

 

There has been a common convention that people in the applied arts, design, and architecture can enter the art realm and gain immense reputation as fine art practitioners. Surya Rao garu is no different. He worked as an engineer in Panchayat Raj projects in the undivided Andhra Pradesh state. He is a civil draftsman by training and profession. He has overseen a number of small and big developmental projects in and around Visakhapatnam zone. It may not be entirely out of context to mention the names of the illustrious watercolourist late Mr. R. Krishna Rao and the famous abstract painter late Mr. Achuthan Kudallur started their careers as architectural draftsmen who later transformed into the successful sought after creative artists.

As a young boy, Surya Rao garu learned sketching, drawing, and other forms of illustration from my late grandfather, Mr. K Subrahmanyam, who also happens to be his maternal uncle. Young Surya Rao could handle pen and ink illustrations with a dip pen. He could effectively draw with stumping powders, both of which are now obsolete. He even learned the basics of Carnatic music through the bamboo flute from him. 

Diwan of Pithapuram, drawn at age of 17.

Post-retirement, Surya Rao garu's love for the visual arts and music found a path of  
resurgence. Hitherto subdued skills owing to the commitments of mundane life evolved and developed to its full potential.

He received mentoring in music from an efficient teacher and was successful in fine-tuning his skills. Similarly, in the domain of art, he had a brief interaction with a veteran commercial portrait painter in Hyderabad and effectively gained inputs for the furtherance of his skills. 

He has done countless portraits so far using coloured pencils as his favourite medium. His subjects are mainly portraits of his friends, neighbours, relatives, and other acquaintances. His "modus operandi" for drawing a portrait, which even youngsters aren't capable of imitating, is as follows: he captures the subjects through his smartphone and meticulously recreates them on paper. He uses the grid lines method, which he learned during his earlier days as a young student. It is an acid test for the artist to accurately bring out the likeness of the subjects through facial expressions and other parts of the face. Strict realism must conform to the photograph taken as a reference, and it is a painstaking affair to execute. Extreme patience is necessary to render realistic portraits compared to the modern-day "loosened up" style. One should not overstep any rules for any cause. 

(For viewing assortment of his painstakingly done portraits, scroll down to find after this brief write up.)

Advanced age and minor physical hardships don't impair him from doing the strenuous work. I presume that he gives away these wonderful creations as gifts to his models. He is tech-savvy and takes pains to circulate his unending stream of sketches to his fans throughout the world via WhatsApp. Viewing them is a rewarding experience for amateur artists, professionals, and laypersons. Additionally, I reckon the feedback he receives from his friends (virtual or otherwise) might also help stimulate his desire to work more.

He and his wife live in a small cosy apartment in Hyderabad. His wife, Mrs. Lakshmi Pokkuluri garu, plays the Veena (a stringed instrument) as a pastime and she is an avid music enthusiast. He has a daughter and two sons. His daughter lives in Hyderabad, and both sons live in Melbourne. He often shuttles between India and Australia and spends quality time with grandchildren and their offspring. He gains a lot of exposure to globally accepted customs and various facets of multiculturalism prevalent in other parts of the world through his tours. On several occasions, he would send me video clips of the buildings, vast supermarkets, local flora, and shops where they sell Indian crafts, artifacts and edible commodities like fruits ,vegetables sourced from far off countries. These videos are a sheer delight to me as a person who hasn't traveled anywhere north of Vindhyas.

While Surya Rao garu continues to create masterpiece after masterpiece effortlessly, I wish that young artists, especially Gen Z, make noteworthy contributions to the art community by actively creating prolific art output consistently and at all times, taking impetus from Surya Rao garu's captivating compositions.

From the large corpus of works that he has made, I wish his financially comfortable children bring out a coffee table book or alternatively arrange a solo art show of their dad at a prominent gallery.

"Art is the heartbeat of humanity."

Srinivas Krothapally

(X'mas-2023)

KCR' an Indian Politician

My Master(Portrait Painter)

Narendra Modi

Mr Prabhakaram( a relative )

Rajiv Gandhi

Samantha(actress)

Parrots

Bahadur- a friend

Exploring the expression

Study of an elderly man

Study of a lady

A Head study

An youngster