Defining the core of artist K Laxma Goud’s practice

K Laxma Goud’s life and art is marked by a strong belief in his core values. He has gone against the long-held presumption that an artist can only succeed market by producing large-format painting. In this post, we try to define the core of his art practice:

• K Laxma Goud has staunchly stood by the sketch-line that connects the crude physicality of his characters to their more delicately and subtly exposed psyches. His works of the late 80s period are more geometric and playful in nature. Their contours are fuller and his line persists - more resolved and more mature.
  
• A recurrent theme with him has been that of the erotic - projected as a powerful element of male and female sexuality. According to the artist, 'there’s eroticism hidden in nature itself. Humor, vitality and earthiness emerge as he transforms the characters of his work – a man into goat, and a goat into woman. His simple imagery conveys an idyllic reality, slowly getting obliterated by rampant urbanization.
  
• The artist’s raw and vivacious portrayal of men and women exude the rustic, albeit fascinating Indian ethos rather than stressing upon any specific individual identity. They are imbibed with energy, which reverberates through his strokes and teeming textures.

• Apart from his exemplary narrative ability, Laxma Goud's skill and sophistication in dealing with pencil or paintbrush are simply remarkable. An eye for meticulous detail and precise incisiveness marked by hatched lines has been his forte. Gradually, the figures have turned softer, seemingly more introspective.

• His practice is largely centered on the rural environment recreating landscapes from his formative years as if perpetually frozen in time and memory. His more recent lush landscapes done in vivid colors reminiscent of his jovial youth spent in lusty rural settings of his home state. Like most of his work, these are executed in miniature format in order to let the viewer engage directly with his work. The innocence, simplicity, bright color, fascinating flora and fauna suggest the bucolic naivety.