Beyond Boundaries : A Collective Study of Artistic Processes, Regional Influences, and Contemporary Expressions

The recently concluded exhibition Beyond Boundaries at the State Gallery of Art, Hyderabad, emerged as an expansive canvas of dialogues — between tradition and modernism, between region and universality, and between the personal and the collective.

Curated by Vasu Prem, the exhibition assembled a wide spectrum of paintings and sculptures, each work representing an individual negotiation of form, process, and influence. Rather than attempting to impose uniformity, the exhibition celebrated multiplicity as its core strength. As the curator observed:

“The intention of curating the exhibition is not to demonstrate uniformity, but to represent the power of diversity, where every artist brings a unique perspective that stretches across cultural, stylistic, and emotional borders. Hence, I believe this group show of paintings and sculptures caters to a wider audience and students across art institutions to know about the present condition of art, and creates an ambience where the artists from beyond boundaries share creative synergy with beautiful artistic idioms. The visual spaces are expected to invite the viewers to perceive art not just as something enthralling, but as a space of personal expressions beyond what we generally assume, and beyond what we actually interpret.”

This vision guided an exhibition that not only included a distinguished roster of artists from Telangana but also featured prominent voices from across India. Together, they created a field of inquiry into how influences of land, culture, and individual memory translate into unique artistic languages.

Bringing Together Regional Roots, Personal Voices

At the heart of the exhibition lay an acknowledgment that nativity is not restrictive but generative. Thota Vaikuntam’s vibrant Telangana women and Laxman Aelay’s Poolamma drew upon the region’s ethos, while Nirmala Biluka’s watercolours placed feminine power in archetypal dialogues with nature.

Agacharya, a senior artist whose work has long emphasized figurative realism rooted in nativity, contributed to this continuum. His Lakeside Talks reaffirmed the enduring relevance of figurative realism and regional modernist practices, underscoring the exhibition’s intergenerational depth. The inclusion of Agacharya — father of the curator — also symbolized how artistic influences move across generations while evolving distinctively in each artist’s practice.

Animal metaphors extended the theme of nativity: Sreekanth Kurva’s collaged forms and Bharat Sayam’s textured animal figures rooted themselves in community identity, while Jaya Prakash, Masuram Ravi Kanth, and Dinkar Jadhav reinterpreted the horse motif across spiritual, nostalgic, and erotic registers.

Tradition and Modernist Experimentation

The exhibition revealed a striking spectrum of stylistic negotiations. Vinod Sharma’s Mindscape offered a meditative abstraction, set against Arpan Bhowmik’s Street Life, a realistic rendering of urban bustle. Works by Srinivasa Rao Potelu, P.J. Stalin, and Vijay M. Dhore extended abstraction into existential, textural, and vibrant directions, while Devulapalli Hanumantha Rao’s contemplative abstraction bridged representational and non-representational idioms.

In contrast, artists like Sanjay Ashtapure, Sachin Jaltare, and Botcha Bhaskar Rao worked through formalist and semi-figurative processes, negotiating the interplay of figuration and temperament. Asit Kumar Patnaik’s textured figurative works and Arunanshu Chowdhury’s Library further anchored this dialogue between personal memory and visual idiom.

Femininity, Emotional Intimacy, and Cultural Memory

Feminine identity and emotional intimacy formed another current. Afza Tamkanat’s Thirst, Bandana Kumari’s Road Stars, and Swetaha Chandra’s Sanguinity variously explored relationships with nature, critiques of voyeurism, and symbolic optimism. Farhad Tamkanat, Sachin Sagare, and Anand Panchal offered more celebratory portrayals of women, while Jagannatha Paul’s semi-figurative works interrogated intimacy through cubistic structures.

Cultural memory surfaced powerfully in Santhana Krishnan’s Doors series, which opened symbolic thresholds into heritage, and Bolgum Sai Aditya’s Haveli Window Detail, a precise paper-cut meditation on architectural legacy.

Mythological Continuities

The mythological thread underscored how sacred narratives remain relevant to contemporary practice. Amol Pawar’s Shiva, Om Swami’s divine figuration, and Ramesh Gorjala’s Kalamkari-inspired deities drew from iconographic traditions while bending them into modernist idioms. Younger voices like Akshay Anand Singh and Sukant Das demonstrated how even well-trodden mythological figures could be revitalized through naïve figuration or layered detail.

Broad Spectrum of Contemporary Voices

The range of visual idioms stretched beyond figuration and myth. Umakant Tawde’s Buddhist-inspired serenity contrasted with Murali Thigulla’s flamboyant canvasses, while Shankar Pamarthy’s sharp caricatures infused the show with political critique. Anand Gadapa’s metaphorical explorations challenged the very act of viewing, extending the exhibition’s intent to push beyond conventional perception.

Beyond Boundaries is a Study of Diversity as Language

What distinguished Beyond Boundaries was not merely the breadth of its roster but the depth of its inquiry. By bringing together artists across generations, regions, and stylistic orientations, the exhibition created a space to study how personal processes and cultural influences crystallize into unique artistic languages.

For Telangana, the show underscored how its artists continue to shape contemporary Indian art while remaining rooted in local memory. For the wider art community, it affirmed that diversity itself is the language of contemporary practice — a language that transcends region while never losing its sense of place.

Exhibition: Beyond Boundaries | Curated by Vasu Prem | Venue: State Gallery of Art, Hyderabad has ended. But the curator can be contacted at:

9885442590 / artdias.com@gmail.com / vasupremdesign@gmail.com