This one is for the soft-hearted

HYDERABAD: Life is a continuous struggle for excellence and in this process, the one thing that everyone craves for is peace of mind. This idea is the inspiration behind Ahobilam Prabhakar’s latest series of paintings on display at the Chitramayee State Art Gallery along with paintings of four others.Ahobilam is a self-taught artist but has over 14 years of experience behind him. His latest series of paintings, he says, are meant to invoke pleasant feelings in people’s hearts. All the paintings have a female face with a sharp nose, elongated and enchanting dreamy eyes and small beautiful lips painted in shades of red and yellow. Works of R Subhash Babu, a seasoned painter with experience in teaching and painting spanning over 30 years, are also on display at the gallery. The vice-president of the Hyderabad Art Association’s acrylic paintings on canvas too are just as mesmerising. The works, all of them featuring females in traditional attire, have hues of red, blue and yellow. One of the paintings, Beauty in Cleavage, is an exception though. This painting, done with minimal use of colours, catches the eye with its subtle depiction of beauty. One more painting of his is of a Shivaling. With a hand offering flowers and a three petaled lotus, it symbolises the Trishul and shows the soft side of the God of Destruction.Annapurna Yeluripaty’s paintings are landscapes of a semi-abstract nature. The paintings are beautiful because of the partial description of the features which gives a blurred but pleasing view.Amila Reddy is one, who has developed her own form of painting in which she uses geometrical shapes to create depth. Her paintings show women from rural areas doing different activities and make extensive use of blue and yellow. The paintings have geometrical shapes of rectangle, square and triangle covering the canvas. The paintings of Narahari, an officer at the art department of NIN, are also on display at the gallery. His paintings show his attachment to the village he belongs. He depicts the daily grind of villagers and captures the culture of rural India. One of the paintings shows ‘Tolu bommalata’, a puppet show, in a village. Another painting by him is of two people playing ‘ponga’ and a drum with a decorated bull in the backdrop of thatched houses in an obvious reference to Pongal.The art exhibition has 44 paintings on display with the price ranging from `20,000 to `65,000 per piece. The exhibition is on till December 23.