The nine final year students of the MVA painting department, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, who showed at the venue (June 1 to 8), suggest that there has been much improvement in the institution’s teaching while, more importantly, in many cases proving personal involvement and sincerity both in their technical skills and in presenting themes and moods that truly preoccupy them. Although formalist indulgency for itself may not be entirely absent in their work, it nevertheless diminishes now in comparison with what one has seen at the college earlier, especially in painting.
What counts is the better level of confident and sometimes free brushing. It reflects the young artists’ engagement with real issues and frank self-expression.
One should not hold it against them that the styles of many do echo of certain already established idioms and of the general preference for essentialist realism impregnated by tones of fantasy and soft poetry. It may turn somewhat nice, in particular when grave subjects are introduced, still it bodes well as such.
Here one appreciates Subhashini P and her densely atmospheric self-portraits immersed in vegetation which introduces elements of digital forms. Ravi Kumar M convinces about the authenticity of his sensing the world through his own presence in it and a longing for loftiness, as his allusions to Surendran Nair bring in a broader, but not verbal, comment on censorship. Thirumala M Thirupathi also uses self-portraits against and within scenes of conflict and tension visualising those.
Gururaj H S questions social ideals and disturbing realities by juxtaposing Gandhi’s figure and symbols with stretches of parched soil.
If her compositions seem design-like, which increases in her rather formalist installations, that element becomes enhanced towards dizzily dynamic but slightly decorative in the work of Shashwathi N C. A partly similar area of reference serves an aesthetically fine purpose in the relief-cum-collage compositions of Kavitha D K.
 The teeming images with game motifs and room interiors by Pooja Rakhia and Vyajyanath M Averi, respectively, are consummate.