Bengaluru, 17 December(HS): This latest collection from Kuppanna Kandgal is a deep breath taken in a loud world. It is a journey into the stillness that lies at the heart of existence, rendered not through spectacle, but through a profound, poetic restraint.

Kandgal's canvas, in this new series, finds its eloquence in silence. He has chosen to step away from the full chorus of colour, opting instead for a subdued palette—a symphony of black, white, and muted tones. This choice is a deliberate, soulful act: to quiet the visual noise and distraction, allowing the viewer's eye to settle on the bare essence of things.

Painting is one of my recent series of works in black and white colours. I practice this to incorporate both colours magnificently... One of the key rationale is to reduce the colour palette to loosen the distraction that colours cause to the viewers and let the black and white colours can maintain the focus on specific aspects such as form, space, negative space, etc.

This is painting as meditation. It is an artistic desire to depict stillness, where the canvas, dominated by grey, black, and muted tones, preserves a resonance both lyrical and deeply introspective.

The Formal Poetics of Structure

The rigorous commitment to this restricted aesthetic serves as a pure embrace of Minimalism. Kandgal systematically strips away the superfluous, constraining his visual vocabulary to a necessity that is not a reduction, but a highly focused refinement. This disciplined practice seeks the fundamental idea that can wholly recalibrate our perception of space and form. In this masterful restraint, a beautiful, compelling order is achieved. The work is an eloquent action of dismantling excess, revealing the structure and essence that reside beneath surface complexity. Kandgal's paintings, through this formal dedication, transform a seemingly limited palette into an infinite landscape of introspection.

Hindusthan Samachar / Manohar Yadavatti