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Dilip Kumar Kesavan

His practice is shaped by his experiences of living and working in Chennai and by the memories embedded within its changing urban landscape. The city's transformation from Madras to Chennai- its architecture, streets, beaches, artistic traditions and everyday rhythms- continues to inform his visual language. Through abstraction, he explores the relationship between personal memory and the collective histories that define the city.

Working with acrylics, mixed media, fabrics, jute sacks, vegetable bags, inks and pastels, he constructs layered surfaces that emerge from observation, intuition and recollection. His compositions employ geometric forms, symbols and traces of the environment to evoke the intersections between Nature, culture and urban life. Rather than depicting specific places, his works seek to capture the atmosphere of the city and its multiple inheritances, where local traditions and contemporary experiences coexist and continually redefine one another.

Karthikeyan Pichaimallian

For Karthikeyan Pichaimallian, Madras has always held a special place in his life. Childhood vacations spent in the city with his cousins created some of his happiest memories of flying kites, wandering through its streets and walking the entire length of Thangasalai while absorbing its energy, people and endless shops. These simple experiences fostered a deep emotional connection with the city.

Over the years, Karthikeyan has witnessed Madras transform into Chennai. New buildings, technology and infrastructure have reshaped its skyline, yet the city has retained its enduring charm. Through his interactive sculptures and paintings, he seeks to express the spirit of Chennai. His use of colour, layered surfaces and abstract forms reflects a city that is vibrant, multicultural, ever-evolving and full of hope.

Rather than portraying Chennai simply as a place, Karthikeyan aims to capture how it feels. His works evoke a city that quietly reflects the lives of its people and serves as a reminder that growth and belonging continue to coexist.

Kirubakaran. N

For Kirubakaran N., painting has long been a means of exploring rural landscapes and everyday life. Created specifically for this curated exhibition, this series shifts the focus to Madras- Chennai, celebrating the culture, livelihoods and enduring spirit of the city's ordinary people.

The works depict the lives of coastal fishing communities shaped by sunlight and sea breeze, the vibrant energy of street vendors and the relentless movement of rickshaw pullers navigating the city's diverse neighbourhoods. Together, these scenes capture the resilience, dignity and cultural continuity that define everyday life in Chennai. The series also draws attention to the city's smaller water bodies and its varied urban landscapes, reflecting the colours, textures and rhythms that characterise the city.

Rendered in a blend of realism and expressive aesthetics, the paintings convey a vibrant sense of movement and atmosphere. Although Kirubakaran works across a variety of media, the series presented at this exhibition has been created using acrylics and watercolours.

Preethi Umapathy

At the heart of Preethi Umapathy's practice is an exploration of what it means to exist as a human being: to think as a mind, to move as a body and to feel as a soul. In this series, that inquiry extends to the city she inhabits, examining how Chennai continues to carry the memory of Madras and how that layered history shapes the ways its people think, move and experience the world.

Her practice begins with careful observation. Drawing from extensive reading on human emotion and behaviour, Preethi brings the same attentiveness to everyday life by studying conversations, gestures, silences, the ways people carry themselves and the subtle ways a city preserves its memory through symbols, rituals and habits. These observations become as integral to her visual language as her literary and philosophical influences.

Working across painting and printmaking, Preethi creates spaces where mind, body, soul and memory coexist within a single frame. While painting offers an immediate and intuitive dialogue between thought, hand and surface, printmaking reflects the layered nature of experience. Through its processes of carving, pressing and repetition, it becomes a metaphor for the ways by which memories are inscribed onto both individuals and places. Much like Chennai itself, each layer bears the traces of what came before, revealing a city whose history is continually transformed yet never entirely erased.

Rajesh R V

For Rajesh R. V.,the Earth is not merely a place where life exists but a living organism in itself. He views every creature as uniquely evolved with abilities that enable it to interact, exchange energy and coexist in harmony within an interconnected ecosystem. This philosophy extends to his understanding of the city, where flowers, animals, insects and every living being play an essential role in sustaining its ecological balance and beauty.

In this series, Rajesh imagines a city with a soul that predates its name. It is envisioned as a landscape attuned to the rhythms of nature, where sunflowers bear witness to the life-giving force of the sun, horses embody the sacred rhythm of movement by connecting people, journeys and destinies and banana trees stand as enduring symbols of fertility, renewal and Nature’s boundless generosity.

Through these works, Rajesh seeks to reimagine the city not as a modern construct but as a place that reflects what it might have been, had humanity remained deeply connected to Nature rather than being driven by consumption, desire, selfishness, ego and endless ambition. His vision is one in which animals are not categorised or separated from human life and where beauty, balance and eternity coexist within a harmonious and interconnected society.

Ramesh

Ramesh'spractice is rooted in close observation of the landscapes and everyday life that shaoe and define the identity of a place. As a printmaker, he is drawn to the layered and intricate processes of etching, woodcut and mixed media, where texture and technique become integral to visual storytelling.

His recent works explore the beauty of Chennai through its historic buildings, streets, neighbourhoods and everyday rhythms. Rather than documenting the city, Ramesh interprets its atmosphere by capturing the quiet interactions between architecture, people and urban life. Through recurring motifs and richly textured surfaces, he reflects on the ways memory becomes embedded within the city's evolving landscape.

The coexistence of heritage structures, local traditions and contemporary urban life reveals Chennai as a city that continually redefines itself while preserving its cultural legacy. Through his prints, Ramesh celebrates the enduring relationship between place, memory and everyday experience.

Raviram

For Raviram, sculpture is a language through which thoughts and emotions find expression beyond words. Working with welded copper and brass sheets and wire, he transforms observations from his surroundings into two-dimensional sculptural forms depicting deities, animals, insects, fish and birds.

His distinctive approach is rooted in a rich artistic lineage, having trained under his uncle, the eminent sculptor P. V. Janakiram. Over the past 31 years, Raviram has developed a unique visual language that combines craftsmanship, mythology and imagery drawn from everyday life. Through minimal means, he creates intricate compositions that celebrate both the ordinary and the sacred.

Rather than being driven by intellectual concepts, Raviram's sculptures emerge from emotion and intuition. Their meticulously detailed forms and varied relief textures evoke a sense of completeness and quiet rhythm, creating a meditative presence. The elaborately crafted frontal compositions lend an indigenous character to his works while reflecting a deep respect for traditional craftsmanship. Above all, Raviram sees himself as an artist who hears with his mind and speaks through his hands.

Sathya

Sathya's Madras Modernity explores the evolving identity of Madras through the intimate language of everyday life. Rooted in the city's cultural memory, the series brings together the ritual of filter coffee, the enduring presence of Madras women and the iconic Madras checks textile as enduring symbols of continuity amidst change.

As the city embraces rapid urban transformation, these familiar elements remain deeply woven into its collective consciousness, connecting generations through shared experiences. The vibrant Madras checks, once a handwoven textile that travelled across the world, become metaphors for movement, cultural exchange and layered identities. Filter coffee anchors the narrative as a ritual of pause, conversation and belonging, while the recurring presence of Madras women reflects the resilience and continuity of the city's social fabric.

Through rich colour, texture and symbolism, Sathya's paintings celebrate a form of modernity that is not defined by a rupture with the past but by the seamless coexistence of heritage, memory and contemporary life in the ever-evolving city of Madras.