SK Rajavelu’s The Body, As Is at Ashvita’s shows how little line can hold

At the ongoing exhibition, artist SK Rajavelu’s drawings don’t try to catch your eye. They sit quietly, built with just lines and restraint, asking you to slow down and truly look. The exhibition The Body, As Is is more a return than just an unveiling. A return to line. To the human figure drawn not as a spectacle, but as structure.

SK Rajavelu’s The Body, As Is brings quiet restraint to Ashvita’s Chennai

As co-curator Rithik Pramod puts it, “The Body, As Is felt like the right title because it invites people to just see the human form as it is. For Rajavelu, the body was not a fragment to be stylised, but a complete and indivisible presence.”

Born in 1941 and trained at the Government College of Art and Crafts, Madras, Rajavelu was part of a generation that shaped what we now call the Madras Art Movement. But even within that context, his path was distinct. While many of his contemporaries moved towards abstraction or colour-led experimentation, he stayed with the figure, and more specifically, with line.

Most works are on paper, spanning different mediums, charcoal, ink, pastel, watercolour. But the medium never overwhelms the intention. His female nudes, often reduced to contour and rhythm, are not about seduction or display. They are about presence. About how much the body can be held together by almost nothing at all. With his works, you start noticing how little is actually needed to suggest weight, movement, or even emotion.

Rithik explains it simply, “His figures may appear simple and flat, but they are carefully structured. Line holds the body together, defines space without deep perspective, and keeps the surface active and balanced.”

Revisiting Rajavelu’s drawings today also opens up a larger conversation on how we engage with the body in contemporary India. The exhibition at Ashvita’s creates a quiet dialogue between past and present, asking viewers to reconsider how the human form has been studied, represented, and understood over time.

The space itself also plays a quiet but important role in how these drawings are experienced. “We constantly play with the space, whether it’s the colours of the walls or the orientation of the exhibition,” co-curator Ashvin E Rajagopalan notes. But it’s not just visual design at play. “It’s also governed by the narrative of the exhibition, the curatorial context, the chronology.”

Free entry. On till May 22. From 11 am to 7 pm.

Email: shivani@newindianexpress.com
X: @ShivaniIllakiya

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