The grammar of Nandagopal’s artistic language is linearity and his expression that of a statement. Kama, the God of love is a fore runner of the Valentine, one who shoots the arrow of passion with ease and precision aiming to seduce the lover that caves in to the overtures of the Lord. Perhaps answering a calling of the heart, that of a damsel in distress, the buoyancy of stance adopted by his subject has a deep understanding of relationship and balance.

 In Elanchezhiyan’s sculpture, evocation of Shiva’s vehicle the Nandi or the Bull is based on an expressionist handling, the form being built on fleeting layers that expose the fluidity of the bovine body, yet bared to its minimalist essence. As a messenger of Shiva, by meditating on and revering the Nandi the devotee reaches the Lord’s feet.

Anchoring him to a realm of the imaginary, Shivarama Chary’s fantastical figure of Krishna implemented in fibreglass is propped up like a pop idol, himself an ethereal being that atomizes the energy circle around. Blue blooded to the core, the Lord has a grin that teases the viewer and captures the heart.

Shalini Biswajit’s Goddess in stainless steel brushes aside the details and patterns the suggested in a caricatural spin with a beginning and no end. Journeying with the essence, it occupies a new ecology that plays with wit and texts - a common code of connoted and denoted messages. An urban outlook that extols and deifies the figure and its equation with the Lotus is modern in context yet traditional in contemplation, echoing the Now generation of visionaries.

Shalini uses colour and line as a metaphor in her paintings to convey the underlying spiritual message. He search for the Divine leads her to the pristine surroundings of the mountains that she chants her way through to seek the attention of Lord Shiva as indicated by the three lines on the canvas that appear on His forehead. The third eye present in some works as a stainless steel disc is rather prominent as if to open her inner vision that gives her clarity of thought and action.

K. Muralidharan, culls Gods and Goddesses from the world of mythology in a wondrous menagerie of brightly colored and detailed creatures that inhibit spaces creating niches that each spin a separate story where pathos and ethos is visible only to the discerning eye. Covered with a second skin of intricate details his deified characters are most certainly human.

In today’s world of gizmos and glitz, the all pervasive Lord is humanised to effect a direct approach, rather like telepathy that responds to the call of the devotee since the approach to form and visualisation is direct , relative and immediate. So is the quest of the Spiritual and the Divine. One only needs to pursue with passion and the result is within reach.