Artist Jaikishan Tada on his series Time Stood Still

Jaikishan Tada and his work Hampi Perspectives Special Arrangement
| Photo Credit: Ruth Dhanaraj

Destiny struggles to reassert itself, and sometimes happily it succeeds, wrote Dean Koontz in Lightning.

As a boy, Jaikishan Tada was so enamoured by the works of cartoonist RK Laxman, he wanted to be a cartoonist when he grew up. “I would have been in class seven or eight at that time; I was tremendously influenced by his illustrations. I wanted to become a cartoonist too.”

However, life took him in a different direction and Jaikishan became a software engineer, working in that field for more than 20 years. “It was in 2008, that I began to feel I had to do something that would bring me peace and happiness, something that would stay with me. Those thoughts re-ignited my interest in art and I began to paint,” says the Bengaluru-based artist.

“Whether it was destiny or not, I cannot say, but my wife Ranjitha Acharya, is also an artist,” he adds. “She’s been my teacher, mentor and first critic.”

Jaikishan Tada and his work Hampi Perspectives Special Arrangement
| Photo Credit:
Ruth Dhanaraj

Apart from Ranjitha’s inputs, Jaikishan says he used to pore over the works of great masters, studying their lives and works from their early years. “That was my art education — looking at their work in chronological order, learning how their art evolved and gleaning as much information I could from the internet.”

Jaikishan was so focused on his newfound passion, that he quit his job in 2009, to pursue art full time. “My sole aim was to hold just one exhibition of my work. We were living in Hyderabad at the time and our home was filled with paintings my wife and I were working on.”

For a person who yearned for one solo show, Jaikishan enjoyed four exhibitions in the span of two years, and despite going back to a corporate setup, the call of art was so strong, he opted for an early retirement in 2022. “I found it difficult to balance both my job as well as my passion.”

A look at Jaikishan’s work shows a bold use of colour and geometric shapes to capture landscapes in an abstract Cubist manner.

Jaikishan Tada and his work Hampi Perspectives Special Arrangement
| Photo Credit:
Ruth Dhanaraj

“I started with watercolours and then went on to use oils. It’s easy for beginners to work with oils as it offers a lot of flexibility and a chance to experiment,” says the artist who has, over time, come to prefer acrylics as his medium of choice.

“While I was experimenting in my way of rendering how I wanted to express myself, I found a way of using a palette knife to add layers to my art Acrylics are more favourable for my kind of work as the bottom layers dry up fast, making it easier to apply the next coat. Though I also use a brush, my final touches are delivered using the knife,” says Jaikishan, adding that since experimental learning was a continuous process for him, he could switch to other media in the future.

Talking about the works in Time Stood Still, Jaikishan recalls a family trip to Hampi in 2013, after they relocated from Hyderabad. “The landscape was a revelation for me — the play of sunlight on the rocks and ruins as well as the shadows they threw, stirred my abstract insights. Though I primarily do pure abstracts, I wanted to bring out the identity of Hampi in my representations.”

Jaikishan Tada and his work Hampi Perspectives Special Arrangement
| Photo Credit:
Ruth Dhanaraj

This fascination with Hampi inspired this series, with a majority of the 14 canvases, ranging between 24×36 and 24×24, having been executed over the last one year.

Time Stood Still will be on display at MKF Museum of Art till August 13, 2023.

Jaikishan Tada and his work Hampi Perspectives Special Arrangement
| Photo Credit:
Ruth Dhanaraj

Jaikishan Tada and his work Hampi Perspectives Special Arrangement
| Photo Credit:
Picasa