A solo show, Orthic 2020-22, by veteran artist and one of India’s leading abstractionists T. Kaladharan is under way at Nanappa Art Gallery in the city. The exhibition features works done during the pandemic. While the work of many artists reflects the shadow of COVID-19, Kaladharan’s art bucks the trend and does not reveal the trauma the world went through. He was the hopeful artist who knew that this too would pass.
Except for the reduced size of the 50-odd paintings, it looks as if the artist picked up the brush where he had left it before the world stopped in its tracks. In one painting, an inky black line flows from the top to the middle and curves around faces, figures and flowers and overlaps swirls of orange and red hues. “I could not stop drawing that line,” smiles the artist.
