Arun KT presents Prayers of Dragonflies — a series born from childhood wonder and a deep belief in the interdependence of life. His bold, exuberant palette becomes a hymn.
What drew you to this subject and its symbolism?
Dragonflies were a source of immense joy in my childhood, flitting in and out of my window. Today, in our Anthropocene era, they are increasingly absent. For me, they have become both memory and metaphor: a prayer for the coming of a Symbiocene, an age where life thrives again in interdependence. The Jain tenet paras paropagraho jivanam — all life is interdependent — echoes through this series. Each dragonfly I paint is both a reminder and a plea: that joy, lightness and balance must return.
Colour seems central to your artistic identity. How do you approach colour as emotion and language in this body of work?
Joy is simple and so are my colours. I work with direct, bold strokes and uncluttered palettes because I want the feeling to be immediate. A flash of red on yellow or green on deep blue needs no translation. Colour, for me, is not decorative. It is emotional language. It carries the urgency and purity of joy, which I want to preserve in its simplest form.
Three artists. Three journeys. Three distinct languages of colour and form. Medley 3, the third edition of a collaborative exhibition by self-taught artists Atoshi Shyam, Arun KT and Deepak Joshi, offers viewers a potpourri of visual experiences where emotion, memory and imagination entwine. Inaugurated by actor Sudha Belawadi, Medley 3 promises more than an art exhibition — three parallel worlds, each distinct yet bound by a shared hunger to create, question and reimagine.
Deepak Joshi turns his gaze towards magnolias, rendering them in a spectrum that moves from soft pinks to captivating reds. His canvases are meditations on beauty and delicate flora, captured with both force against changing backdrops.
You’re showcasing a series of magnolia paintings — what inspired you to focus on this particular flower?
One day, I saw a friend from Canada posting a series of trees overflowing with the most gorgeous flowers; her post was titled Magnolias. I looked up ‘magnolias’ on Google images and was stunned. I painted one, then another and it soon developed into a series. Magnolias come in basically a few colours — white, pink, purple and yellow. I mostly paint white or pink magnolias. Since, I can’t have the same background every time, I choose new background colours each time. So, I went from white to pink to blue to bright red.
Could you walk us through a couple of magnolia works in this series that you feel reveal different sides of your artistic vision?
Magnolias IV was the fourth one I drew in this series. This time, the magnolias got bigger, filling the screen, captured behind some strange snowflakes. With Magnolias X, I started experimenting with background colours. It’s the one with the blueish background shared here.
For Atoshi Shyam, a contemporary dancer and painter, art is inseparable from movement. Her retrospective, spanning two decades, translates the rhythm of performance into brushstrokes, offering layered narratives that shift between fluidity and intensity.
You’re presenting a retrospective that spans from 2004 to the present. How does this collection chart your creative evolution over the decades?
I’ve always loved bright colours and creating new shades from different colours with my fingers dipped in paint as a kid. Each combination was magical, stimulating my imagination. But the art was raw. I mustered the courage to display my work from 2004 on. From 2005 onwards, I began working with NGOs supporting neurodiverse children and adults, experimenting with drip art. Working with them taught me to be patient and observant. My artwork became very intricate. I worked with only a point 0 brush, 10 to 14 hrs a day. My earlier works were more about experimenting with mediums and subjects that attracted me. Now, I have greater clarity of my style of work and I have a greater sense of ease — my collection represents this artistic evolution.
How does your practice as a contemporary dancer influence your visual art and in what ways do movement and colour converse in your canvases?
I am an Indian contemporary dancer. During my training, we were shown abstract paintings and told to enact their stories. That’s when I learnt to read an abstract painting, look for what you see and feel, analyse elements like colour, form, line, texture and composition to understand their interaction and the emotional impact they generate. As a dancer and a painter, I am telling stories. Some of my works, Identity and Uncertainty, Cacophony, Navaras and The Immortals, are ballets on canvas. I paint primarily with acrylic and sometimes oil on canvas and walls.
Entry free. August 29 to August 31. At Alliance Francaise, Vasant Nagar.
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