If your idea of a typical artist is that of a man in an unkempt beard, lost in his own world and mumbling incomprehensible lingo with a 'jhola' on his shoulder you must meet this man. He is successful, articulate and can relate to people in a jiffy. His works adorn the walls of important connoisseurs, collectors and best museums. You can't miss him in any major art exhibition or an important social evening. He will be clad in black apparel most of the times and going around from person to person smiling, chatting up and cracking jokes. Yes, it looks as if he knows every body in town and vice-versa. The man in question - Yusuf Arakkal is no ordinary painter. He is one of the very well known painters in national and international art circles. And no, he did not reach the enviable position that he is in now, in one day. It was a long drawn affair; It is the hard work and tribulation spanning three decades, that has borne fruits.

This is the story of a man from the Arakkal royal family, who once had a sizable part of Kerala as their fiefdom. Yusuf Arakkal was born in this royal family in 1945. But he gave up his royalty trappings and landed in Bangalore. Then, onwards he was on his own and would build his life on his terms. He joined the Chitrakala Parishat as an art student and completed his diploma in 1973. Later he went on to work in Garhi Community Studios run by Lalita Kala Academy, New Delhi to specialize in Print making. All the while he was working as a technician in HAL and painting at home in the free hours. And he has never looked back after those initial hiccups. The statistics for the last thirty and odd years is very impressive. He has held over 38 solo shows in India and 9 solo shows abroad...numerous group shows, in and out of the country...nominated,to prestigious committees...won on several awards which includes Asian Art Biennale at Bagladesh in 1986 and National award in 1983...writings published in news papers magazines. The list is growing by the day...

Yusuf's oeuvre includes drawings, paintings, sculptures, murals, paper works, prints and writing. While painting, he loves to play with browns, ochre's and black. His method of painting, especially oils, needs total involvement and has to be completed more or less in one go. It needs a surety of touch and a deft handling. Thin layers of colors are quickly overlaid and worked upon. His works have a special feeling for the light in their near chiaroscuro effects. While the lone figure would catch light from a source you cannot pinpoint, the background would be a different game altogether. From time to time he renounces the figure and goes abstract, but even in that abstraction one can feel the remnants of a house or an architecture.

Very often he paints single figures either sitting or standing in somber moods. Even after all the variations he feels that the single figure there on the canvas some how reflects him. His brooding self, which can only reflect in the presence of a canvas. It can be the figure of a man or a woman and take different avatars but it is his inner self. Capturing the loneliness of human spirit.

He always works in series. When something really moves him, he responds, not necessarily a happening of that day or a current event. At times a sight or an experience felt years ago surfaces to haunt him and take their shape. Like a chance visit to the Kamatipura red light area in Mumbai resulted in the 'walls' series years later.'Ganga' series , 'Homage to Egypt', 'Faces of Hunger', 'Beyond the portrait', 'Homage to flight', 'Faces' so on and so forth have flown out from his studio from time to time.

One interesting thing about Yusuf is that he dabbles in different mediums - stone, metal, papier mache, wood, paint which keeps him on his toes and enables him to reinvent himself each time. And, he never goes back to a series which has been done with. The movement is always forward. From one theme to the other, from one medium to the other. The search for a perfect painting / sculpture continues unabated.