Komakula Raja Sekhar’s solo exhibition Choreographing Nature at Focus Art Gallery in Chennai brought together 39 paintings and prints shaped by childhood memory, travel and close observation of animals and plants.
Born in Narsipatnam near Visakhapatnam, the artist drew on village life as well as later experiences in Shantiniketan, Hyderabad and Goa.
Animals with individual character
Goats are among the most recognisable figures in the exhibition.
Sekhar paid attention to regional differences in their appearance, from smaller animals in his home village to taller goats in Shantiniketan and long-eared varieties in Hyderabad.
Roosters recalled animals raised by his father, while elephants entered his visual vocabulary after a visit to the Visakhapatnam zoo. Peacocks, trees and brightly coloured houses completed the densely populated scenes.
Detail built slowly by hand
Sekhar studied printmaking at Shantiniketan, including etching and lithography, before developing a practice that combines pencil, ink and watercolour on thick paper.
He moved from a largely brown-and-black palette toward colour around 2020, initially experimenting with natural materials such as coffee, turmeric, tea and blue-pea flowers.
Leaves, walls and architectural details were built through repeated layers, giving the works their intricate surfaces.
Choreographing Nature turned ordinary animals, vegetation and domestic architecture into a lively visual world where memory and observation remain inseparable.