Ajay De:
 

HIS black-and-white charcoals speak in many colours. A master of drawing and rendering the human form, De delves into his childhood memories and comes up with imagery that is gritty, yet lyrical. He makes a case for the unprivileged and critiques the callousness of modern day society while lionizing those who work for the poor. Mother Teresa is one of his preferred muses and he has rendered her as a figure that represents compassion. It was once said that the Mother was a living saint, and despite a slight controversy around her canonization, she continues to remain a muse for many an artist photographer and filmmaker.

In this work, De has laid emphasis on the lined, hard working hands of the saint.

He has chosen to render her eyes in darkness, lending the work an enigmatic feel.

The blood-red rose she holds in front of her face is a symbol of love. It may be read as a covenant between mankind and the god, with Mother Teresa as the conduit. 

 

Bio: Born in 1967, De graduated from the Government College of Arts and Crafts, Kolkata, and did his post-graduation from Sir JJ School of Art, Mumbai. He lives and works in Mumbai.
 

Akbar Padamsee:
 

A close associate of the Bombay Progressives, Akbar Padamsee, needs no introduction, since his work is famed nationally and internationally. While Padamsee was known for his metascapes or internal landscapes that vibrate with scintillating colours and a metaphysical energy; he began a parallel series of mystical prophet like head studies. His nudes, his erotic couples and his single portraits all bear a deep spirituality and mysticism. His figures have been described as inward looking, otherworldly and meditative. 
        

Padamsee once said that he never drew a face, but allowed it to emerge from the lines and washes of colour that he applied. Padamsee’s own demeanor has been one of aloofness, where he has preferred the solitude of his studio to the hubbub of the crowds in art college and social dos. His paintings, naturally, reflect the same desire to be alone and nurse one’s inner voice rather than listen to the clamour of the outside world.
 

His Prophet series of paintings depict these characters, whose sole purpose in life is to contemplate the world and all the complexities of life. This painting, done in austere monochromatic washes, captures the contemplative and pained face of a Prophet that could be any holy man, from a sadhu meditating near mount Kaliasha to Jesus Christ, the saviour of the Christian faith. The strength of this work lies in its ambiguity.
 

Bio: Born in 1928, Padamsee graduated from the Sir J.J. School of Art in 1940 with a diploma in painting and series of sculpture classes behind him.
 

Akshay Anand:
 

A painter from Hyderabad, Anand is usually inspired by his immediate surroundings and has a keen eye for the everyday life of the common man. In this particular depiction of the goddess Kali, a powerful and popular deity, Anand has rendered the goddess with her multiple hands and garland of heads, but the artist has rendered the goddess with the face of the common woman.

Anand explains that he wanted to evoke the likeness of any mother who the child idolises. She performs the tasks of protection, nurturing her child and the compassion and selflessness usually associated with motherhood is often seen as a divine blessing.

The goddess is rendered in monochrome against a gold background. The borders of this central figure are images taken from the festival, Durga Puja – Durga being Kali’s benign form. The head of the sacrificial goat floats along in space, while the swastika and Om symbols invoke a festive feeling. Two trumpeters flank either side of the painting and arabesques of flowers and fruits form a decorative garland around the image of Kali.
 

The mixed media work is simple yet it evokes a complex rendering of forms.
 

Bio: Anand did his MFA at the Hydarbad University Sarojini Naidu. His typical concepts are inspired from day to day life.
 

Arpana Caur:
 

The Delhi based Arpana Caur has been known as a figurative artist since she began painting. While her main concern has been the girl child and the condition of women in India, she has always welcomed the presence of the divine in her canvasses. Whether it is a benign Buddha, a gentle Guru Nanak, or her women figures enacting out the dohas of Kabir and other Sufi saints, Caur has always been a spiritual artist. Her mother an award-winning author of repute is a great source of inspiration to Caur. She draws from the Punjabi folk literature, the Pahari Miniatures and motifs seen in folk art. Brining these various influences together, Caur renders them in a Modern and sometimes abstract manner. While the figure has always played an important part in her work, she often renders them against a flat background of paint, only hinting to vignettes of landscape.

In this painting, the blue Buddha is depicted floating in a sea of red, his transparent shamghati or robe rendered in the same red. Buddha’s hands are open in a gesture of blessing while his eyes are looking heavenward. The transcendence of Buddha’s posture and demeanour hints to his celestial form. Two trees flank the figure of Buddha, one rendered in white, in a typical, traditional Warli painting style, while the other is a silhouette with falling leaves.
 

Bio: Arpana Caur, a self-taught artist, was born in Delhi in 1954. The award winning Caur has shown all over the nation and internationally.

 

Babu Xavier:
 

The rich and verdant land of Kerala manifests in Babu Xavier’s canvases. Being a self taught artist, Xavier has developed his own trajectory that is completely divorced from academic realism. He apprenticed painter Jayapal Panicker, which led him away from his university studies to become a painter. His strong Marxist ideology informs his politics but Xavier chooses not to make his paintings verbose or obvious. His painterly language evokes very colourful and psychedelic dreamlike imager that is playfully erotic and in other instances, comment on our media driven world. He sometimes quotes imagery from magazines and newspapers, morphing them into his own creations. In other instances, he works with collage, using the actual imagery and painting over it to change its appearance, from a media clipping to a painting.

Xavier once said, his reason to paint never came from reality. Instead, his inspiration came from literature and media. The collage images too are playful, but it does comment sharply on modern life.
 

For this exhibition, Xavier has chosen to depict Christ in a very unconventional manner. The painting’s vivid colours and completely unique posture lends a fantastic surreal feel to an age old image. By inverting its axis from vertical to horizontal, Xavier creates a completely different view of the crucifixion. The only hint for the discerning eye to pick up is of the large branch of thorns that pierces the skin of Christ, as dark blood flows from the branch.    
 

Born in Kerala in 1960, Babu Xavier is a self-taught artist. He has held 15 solo exhibitions including two in Basel and Copenhagen.
 

Badrinarayan:
 

Known as an artist who brings the disciplines of storytelling, illustration and art together, Badri Narayan is another untrained artist who brings spontaneity to his art. With fifty solo shows to his credit and a presence in important collections, Narayan is an important figure on the Indian art scene and yet he has chosen to paint at his own pace and never succumbed to market forces.
 

He has infused his art with nuances of wonderment that are perhaps not visible at the first glance. His art strives to evoke in us a sense of renewal, where our attention moves to all that we take for granted in our experience. The artist prefers the medium of water colour and ink because of its responsive and immediate quality. Moving his pen deftly over paper he creates figures that convey a range of emotions – from the sombre, intense variety to the playful and jocular. This image is unmistakably one that alludes to Christ, all though the hermetic beard and robe has a distinct Semitic feel to it. This Christ is a sharp departure from the beauteous and hedonistic Renaissance models, it has instead the Spartan and deeply religious feel of the Assyrian model of the Saviour.
 

Using the parable, the tale and age old teachings, the Hyderabad born Narayan revisits the Bible, the Ramayan and the Mahabharat to tell these stories with renewed vigour and interpretation.
 

Living in the crowded metropolis, the artist chooses to fill his work with quite and pensive moments.
 

Baiju Parthan:
 

This Kerala born artist discovered his artistic leanings after a tryst with science. He escaped to Goa to pursue art and after a phase of realistic painting he did a stint as a cartoonist with a national daily. After this, Parthan found he was stimulated by the virtual world and the internet. He has been cited as the pioneer of inter-media art. His relentless trawling through cyber space has given birth to a hybrid of virtual reality and archaic symbols from the Pre-Renaissance era. These two arenas of myth making collide and comment on our cosmopolitan lives, where pondering these complexities appear to be almost a luxury.
 

This image of Christ that Parthan has rendered in a limited palette of blue, red and black, is from a series of icons that have inspired mankind. Parthan has the word entropy emblazoned at the bottom of Christ’s head. The word entropy refers to the Shannon entropy, a mathematical theory that explains a random unit containing a message in bits and bytes. By unscrambling the code of numbers used to produce an image on the internet, Parthan arrives at this digitally stimulated image of Christ. This is a comment that we are all minute particles and the whole can be understood only as the sum of its parts. Or put more simply, realty itself is just a perception—perhaps God is one too.
 

Datta Bansode:

This Latur born artist has dedicated his entire artistic oeuvre to depicting Lord Buddha. Bansode’s elongated and stylised Buddha figures have created a new iconography and a new way of looking at Buddha. Bansode was trained by a monk-artist Jagtap Sur, and later he studied formally at the J J School of Art. He chooses to work mainly on handmade paper and paints with enamel paint and mixed media. The paintings are sometimes mounted on wooden board to strengthen the work. Bandode’s Buddha figures capture the tranquil and peace loving Buddha, juxtaposed against a violent world.
 

He first began his series of Buddha paintings after the 1998 nuclear bomb tests, and the term Buddha’s Smile was used to describe the then Prime Ministers joy at India becoming a nuclear power. In reality, the Buddha smiled when a student monk reflected the master’s philosophy through his thrift. Bansode comments on the politically inappropriate usage of this saying, since the Buddha’s philosophy was pro peace and anti violence. In using this phrase, people have displayed an amnesia regarding Buddha’s philosophy and the history of the devastating effects of violence.
 

Taking a leaf out history, Bansode takes off on the Mathura and Gandhari sculptures to create a contemporary interpretation of that indigenous form. In this particular work, he depicts Buddha, showering the world with white flowers of peace. Given the current state of unrest and violence in the world, this image is a wish for harmony and non-violence.
 

Gurcharan Singh:
 

Singh’s art is perhaps a prefect juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane, presented with large dollops of empathy. On one hand, his art illuminates the dark lives of the underprivileged. Sex workers, beggars and vagrant children take centre stage in his canvases with vigour and liveliness. On the other, he paints religious icons like Guru Nanak and Buddha.
 

 The Delhi based artist believes in packing his canvases with lively figures in what may be termed as horror-vacui, a term that denotes the filling of spaces with details and figures. He uses strong colours, though sometimes he prefers a monochromatic palette and single figures.
 

Like many other artists who hail from Punjab, Singh reveres Guru Nanak. In this image, Singh has captured the benign gaze of the guru in soft pastel tones. The Guru, who was born close to Lahore in the 15^th century, is known for his secular view and his close friendship with Mirasi, a Muslim minstrel. In fact, according to the Holy book, the Guru’s first teaching when he received enlightenment was, to decry the divide and enmity between the two religions. Also echoing the Christian belief of love thy neighbour, the Guru believed in mixing with the poor and those of other castes, and this is why this portrait ties up with Singh’s belief in speaking for the marginalised.

 

Krishen Khanna:
 

This renowned artist was born in Lahore, in pre-partition India and much of his art has been affected by the angst of Partition and drew from his early years at the Mayo School of Art in Lahore. He moved base to Shimla and worked in a bank. Finally a transfer to Mumbai, then Bombay, found Khanna rubbing elbows with the Bombay Progressives Artists Group and never looked back after that, art was his calling. Khanna is known for delineating the darker side of the human condition with a masterful stroke of his brush or the linear depictions of gnarled hands and gaunt faces through forceful stokes of a pencil or dry pastel. Khanna describes his urge to draw or create form as a compulsive itch, without it life to him seems depressive and empty.

In this particular work, Khanna has chosen to present viewers with another depiction of the suffering and piety. The hooded and bearded man may well be Christ or a man begging for alms. The outstretched hands appear to be warming itself over an invisible fire and the sienna red that envelope his floating form adds a dramatic feel to work.

Laxma Goud:

The Andhra born painter is known for his erotically charged works, his preference for the female muse and Devi worship. Goud early works are charged and stylised. They portray sexuality as an impulsive and aggressive force of Eros rather than just focusing on the fertility aspect of mythology. In this work however, he has foregrounded the divine aspect of the Devi, portraying her in a highly schematised, linear and mannered style. The sensual aspect of the work is mirrored in the languid postures of the two dwarapallas, or guardian figures. Dressed in the typical style of the local women, these two figures look at the viewer engaging them in a kind of dialogue. The two birdlike figures above the Devi complete the symmetry of the trope.  Goud is proficient in many mediums be it etching, glass painting, drawing with pen and ink.  This work has all the marks of a quintessential Goud.

Laxman Aelay
Carrying a completely different set of sensibilities, Aelay is another artist hailing from Andhra Pradesh, Nalgonda. After completing his BA at the Hyderabad University of Art, he went on to paint as a freelance artist, picking up commission work from collectors and so on.

He developed a style depicting working class men and women in a rugged and robust fashion.

His tryst with literary figures and poets honed his sensibilities where he moved away from Realism toward a symbolism. Drawing from indigenous Telengana soil, Aelay carves out his figures with hard brush strokes, evoking the primitivism of deities like Ellamma and Pochamma. His recent work has however, moved away from that style and evokes a more gentle presence. His Buddha figure possesses the wisdom of years, with lowered lids and a small smile playing upon his lips as he appears to witness the going ons of the world.

Mrityunjay Mondal:

The Bengal born Mondal displays a taste for a vibrant palette and a predilection for divinity. He juxtaposes the diminutive shadowy figure of a human being against a larger than life image of a saint like Mother Teresa or a Saviour like Jesus Christ and Lord Budhha. The feeling is one of sublime surrender to a larger divine force that guides the universe. Working mainly in acrylic on canvas, he has touched upon themes like the Crucifixion and the last supper, Mother Teresa with an orphaned infant or the face of a meditating Buddha floating over an ecstatic devotee.
In this particular work, Mondal essays the pain of a mother when she loses her son. The Pieta, a theme favoured by Renaissance painters, depicts the Virgin Mary with the lifeless body of Christ in her arms. Mondal has painted this composition with rough textured strokes and warm earth colours of brown red and burnt sienna. Notably, the Virgin looks heavenward, as if she were for a moment, rebuking God, the Father, for inflicting this pain on his son for the love of Mankind. It is a profound moment of confrontation that no artist has dared to contemplate yet.
 

Ramakant Samantaray:

Grappling with his identity as an artist from Orissa, Ramakant fashions a complex tableaux of verdant surroundings inspired from his seaside village, Masakani, urban edifices and a vivid configuration of the Bengal tiger, a symbol of masculinity and aggression. Coming from the school of narrative painting, in Baroda after studying at the BK Gov College of Art in Orissa, Ramakant has strived to create his own idiom. He combines the figurative quality taught to him at both universities, with his own preference for symbolism. The tableaux like arrangement of his work is like a puzzle with a set of clues, however there is no right answer to the puzzle and one can draw several conclusions.

In this particular work, Ramakant, creates a goddess out of his own imagination. The sacred cow with its humped back sprouts the wings of a colourful bird of Paradise, the tail of a peacock and the head of a Devi, with a typical Orissa head-dress and ornaments. This figure is set against lush green valley with stylised blue clouds floating over the landscape. What does one make of this hybrid image? Perhaps the one simple conclusion to make is that fait is plural and gods come in many forms.
 

Ramesh Gorjala:
 

An artist whose preferred theme is mythology, Gorjala, fits like a glove when it comes to the premise of this exhibition. This Hyderabad artist captures religious themes with deft hands, detailing every figure from the largest to the smallest.

With an eye for local craft, Gorjala has kept alive some of the traditional techniques followed by very few contemporary artists. Adding his own touch of modernity to it Gorjala keeps the style alive in his art. Using bright colours and around but rendering his figures in white with fine black-lines Gorjala recalls the early palm leaf drawings of the region.
 

For this exhibition Gorjala has decided to create his narrative around Hanuman the follower and right hand man of Lord Ram. For those who know the myth, Hanuman is a monkey God around whom many interesting tales have been told. One is the famous tale of how he mistook the sun for an orange and clashed with it. A mortal would have died, but Hanuman who possessed extraordinary strength and valour only came away with a swollen jaw. In his intricate painting Gorjala tells the myth of Hanuman lifting an entire hill to save Laxman, Ram’s brother who fell in battle. While gently lifting the mountain with his hands the large form of Hanuman is covered in smaller drawings and narratives who the demigods other adventures, like his confrontation with Ravanana rescuing Sita and commandeering his army of monkeys to build a bridge for Lord Ram to cross over.
 

The bottom half of the larger Hanuman figure morphs into a large fish. This springs from yet another myth, where Hanuman was swallowed by a gigantic fish, another take on the Matsyendra story, where a swallowed by a fish, the yogi Matsyendra performed complicated yogic aasanas (positions while in the belly of the fish.
 

Last but not least, Gorjala surrounds his creation of Hanuman with religious text on one side and a board game on the other—perhaps a reference to the game of life.
 

Rini Dhumal:

A senior artist from MSU Fine Arts in Baroda, Rini has both studied and taught at the University. Along with the Baroda predilection for figurative work, she also brings with her the Romanticism of Santinikentan in Kolkatta that favoured indigenous art over foreign influences. Digging down to her roots, Rini comes up with issues and subjects that are spun from her own experience of Bengal. The child bride is one of her favourite subjects, though she has played on depictions of deities, pagan goddesses and mythic forms that are half woman and half beast. Her preference for graphic printmaking techniques is underlined in her mixed media paintings. Sometimes she even uses block prints to create designs around the larger figure that fills up the composition. A central figure stares out at the viewer with Kohl-filled eyes of an aloof and regal individual. The power of the image evokes a sense of quietude and contemplation.

In this particular work, Rini has induced a very unconventional version of Durga with a tonsured head, a large red tilak and a hand raised in blessing. Replete with saffron flowers around her neck she has all the iconography of a deity. Except that Rini has introduced a few twists – in the Devi’s other hand she carries an ektara, a musical instrument often associated with Boul singers bringing a local flavour to this image. Beneath lies a napping tiger who appears soothed by the goddesses’ presence rather than ready for battle, as is the case with most popular depictions.
 

Rohini Reddy:

Rohini is a well known sculptor who works in different mediums, like stone, terracotta and fiber glass creating a style which is her own. She occasionally paints. Having studied at the MSU Faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda, she has also received prestigious recognition from Hyderabad Art Society, AIFACS, and New Delhi. This particular work is in keeping with her style in fibre glass and creating iconic heads. The textured surface of the sculpture lends it a tactile feel. The depiction of a red fleshed Devi evokes Mother Earth, with tiny white flowers painted on her face and clumps of gold in her hair. The shut eyes and slightly open, smiling mouth hints toward a meditative mood.
Coincidently the artist’s features, the strong nose, deep set eyes and small mouth, match that of the sculpture. 
 

Shipra Bhattacharya:

Rising to fame in the last five or six years, this young artist has a metaphysical approach to her art. The human body is a site upon which she integrates the rest of the world. According to the artist, it is difficult to discern where the human body beings and ends or where the environment surrounding it begins and ends. This is why she has integrated the two together, creating one seamless bodyscape.

She prefers to work with the female body, given that it has always been associated with nature. The woman prototype she creates could be from any class or caste and she covers this body with intricate and smooth brush work. The entire scene of Durga battling the asura Mahesha is enacted her protagonists’ back. Flora and fauna abound in the landscape around. The bridge from the nape of the neck to her spine connects this scene to her mind, indicating that what we perceive may be an extension of the protagonists own revere.

Shuvaprasanna:
 

An artist born and brought up in Kolkata, Shuvaprasanna, draws his energy from the city that has inspired many an artist. His art has reflected the mood of the city, whether it is the Naxalite Movement or the economic depression. His style has hovered between Surrealism and Neo-Realism, capturing the city realistically but giving it that touch of the fantastic that elevates it out of a literal depiction. This Collage of Art university graduate was also the founder of an organisation called Arts and Artists and has spearheaded The Visual Collage of Arts.
 In this work of art, the artist has chosen Guru Nanak as his example of the divine. It is an interesting choice because he is not a Sikh and yet he chose the Guru, because for him this saint is the embodiment of virtue.
In this work, Shuvaprasanna has used a soft palette of pastel shades of yellow saffron and white to delineate the form. The Guru is captured with his prayer beads in hand giving a blessing, while his eyes look heavenward.
His body is bent to the left indicating a mood of reverence and gentleness.

Srinivas Reddy:
 

Reddy is another sculptor who has followed a similar trajectory to Rohini Reddy. He also studied sculpture as a post diploma at MSU Faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda. After a JNTU college of Fine Arts in Hyderabad, Reddy worked at the Kanoria Centre for arts before pursuing his MA. The artist works in several mediums including stone and terracotta, though his current favourite is fibre glass.

For this exhibition, Reddy has created an ornate head, in gold red with hints of blue. The face of the protagonist is covered with elements from nature – tiny human figures and shining sun at the forehead. Reddy’s concept of god is a highly personalised and spiritual one, since this figure is not a recognisable god form. Yet it possesses the all seeing and omnipresent attributes of most gods. Overseeing the world from the heavens, god has mankind etched all over his face and head—an unmistakable metaphor for godliness.

Sripad Gurav:

Gurav’s interpretation of the popular and well-loved god Ganapati is a humorous one. The creation that Gurav comes up with is seated on an office chair, has on a tie and shirt tucked into a lungi and in each of his forearms, he has an object symbolising modernity. His first object on the right is a light bulb, one that saves electricity with its wires wrapped around his large ears. The other hand has on a trendy watch and is holding a mobile phone, the nemesis of modern life that accounts for fifty percent of our time. On the left side, the elephant god has an old fashioned microphone, the kind used by politicians at rallies and pop stars in music videos. The last instrument he holds is a torch, something that bespeaks rural India, where electricity is scarce and roads remain unlit at night. Last but not least, the mouse, Ganapati’s vahana, is not a rodent but the electronic device used while working on a computer. The rendition of this figure has been executed minimally, with line and a restrained palette of pinks and off-whites.

This Goa based artist has said a lot with a simple reconceptualising of Lord Ganesha, bringing to an age old, new meanings and interpretations.

Suhas Roy:

This artist was born in Bangladesh when Bengal was undivided and remains one of the enduring names out of Bengal. Dubbed the master of the female form, Roy creates a gentle sensuality with his use of pastels, oils and watercolours. His women are demure, alluring and enigmatic, perhaps a feminist may want to take up the cudgel with him over his frank objectification of women. However, therein lays the beauty and subtlety of the artist’s talent. He remains beyond the reach of such discourse as many enjoy his gentle evocations of female beauty.

Coming to the work that he has essayed for this exhibition, one notices his depiction of Christ, differs with others who have chosen to render the saviour as a grave prophet or suffering and wounded. Roy has chosen to imbue his Christ with a youthful splendour that is much in keeping with is feminine beauties. Although the wreath of thorns hovers over Christ’s head ominously, he continues to look onward at the viewer with gentle warmth. Roy, who has been exposed to the teachings of William Hayter at Indian Collage of Art and then at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts in France, has brought much of an international language into his art while remaining rooted in his own culture.

 

T Vaikuntam:

Here is another artist deeply rooted in his culture, coming from Andhra Pradesh. Like Laxma Goud and his other contemporaries, Vaikuntam taps into the deep sensuality and robustness of the Telangana women. Naturally he comes up with his own idiom, one which was honed at MSU faculty of fine arts. He renders them in bright tempera colours in a highly stylised manner, which is unmistakable.

His rendering of these figures are done in a neat almost geometrical style with flat colours and a neat composition. The figures possess a certain monumentality and stature than makes them proud bearers of their culture.
In this image, Vaikuntam has painted what might be termed as a mythological theme, Krishna and the Gopis. However he has rendered them with the local attire of men and women from Telangana. This Krishna is dressed in a dhoti, his arms and torso covered by the beautiful folds of a light shawl. He wears a typical hairstyle of a man from Telangana. The women on either side are also dressed in the saris with ornaments and large bindis. By localising the deity, Vaikuntam achieves a synthesis of the divine and the everyday.

 

Viraj Naik:

The land of fantasy is where this artist operates. On a flight of whimsy, Naik creates hybrid forms where man and machine fuse as one or where animal and bird join together. As a result of this hybridisation, Naik achieves in his paintings an otherworldly mood to his art. Residing in Goa, Viraj tells stories of his creations that are both morals and tales related to everyday life.

Working mostly in water colour and inks, Naik makes the occasional canvas and here he splashes out with surreal colours and a bright palette. There is an abandonment with which he paints a face green or colours a head of hair red, lending charm and surprise to his creations.

In this particular work, displayed at the show, Naik has chosen to depict the humility of Christ. One of the parables tells of how Jesus one day washed the feet of his disciples. It was selfless act that Christ performed for his disciples to show his love for them. In this version, St Peter appears to contemplate the absurdity of the act, standing before Christ who is waiting to wash his feet. In the back ground, the other eleven disciples wear similar perplexed expressions and since all of their faces point to the viewer, who stands outside the canvas, it creates a sense of staged drama and tension –like the calm before a storm.

Vitesh Naik:

The similar sounding names of the two artists and the fact that they both hail from Goa may lead many to think that their art might be similar. However, that could not be further from the truth.

Vitesh Naik’s style completely differs from Viraj Naik’s paintings because of his approach to figuration, application of paint and composition.
In this work that he is showing, Vitesh has rendered Christ as the central figure, a beautiful bearded messiah with brown curls tumbling around his sad face. The fish was often used as a symbol for Christianity and Vitesh employs it here, as it floats over the head of Christ in a most surreal manner. A woman lurks behind the central figure, enigmatic and blue; perhaps this is Mary Magdalene or the temptation of Satin? 

The rest of the composition is filled with a surreal and symbolic depiction of time. A rooster crows as an egg hatches and the mechanism of a clock explodes out of it. Blue triangles float in space and luscious pears rest on a table. Perhaps what Vitesh is saying is that life as we know it is ephemeral, as time ticks away. Yet the joys of life are tempting and only God can grant us that eternal salvation.