KYNKYNY will present Visual Disobedience, a group exhibition featuring Yuvan Bothysathuvar, S. Ravi Shankar, Saravanan Parasuraman and Ganesh Selvaraj from 19 September to 10 October 2026. Opening at the gallery’s Bengaluru space, the exhibition examines the ways line, geometry, colour, form and material shape visual perception. Bringing together four artists whose practices engage with abstraction through distinct approaches, the exhibition invites viewers to reconsider the relationships between flatness, depth, space and structure.

A Dialogue with Line and Space

At the centre of Visual Disobedience is an investigation into line as one of the most fundamental visual elements. The exhibition considers how lines describe, contain and interrupt space while creating rhythm, movement and structure. Alongside geometry, colour, texture and light, line becomes a tool through which artists construct and question visual experience.

The exhibition situates these explorations within a broader history of Indian abstraction, particularly the modernist experiments associated with the Madras Art Movement. Artists such as K.C.S. Paniker and L. Munuswamy developed visual languages informed by geometry, symbolism, philosophy and vernacular traditions. The participating artists extend aspects of this legacy through contemporary materials and methods.

Paper Beyond the Surface

Paper serves as the dominant material throughout the exhibition, but not in its conventional role as a support for images. Instead, it becomes an active medium capable of transformation through cutting, folding, layering and construction.

Across the exhibition:

• Flat surfaces acquire volume and dimensionality.
• Geometric forms create shifting visual perspectives.
• Colour and repetition generate optical effects.
• Light and shadow alter the perception of depth.
• Paper moves between object, image and sculpture.

A large iron sculpture further expands these concerns, creating a dialogue between solidity and emptiness, mass and line, and form and space.

S. Ravi Shankar’s Sculptural Picture Planes

For S. Ravi Shankar, paper becomes a means of constructing architectural and sculptural picture planes. His compositions are defined by symmetry, repetition and measured intervals, reflecting a practice rooted in drawing and printmaking. Laser-cutting techniques extend these investigations, introducing a level of precision that interacts with changing light conditions.

As shadows move across the surface, the works continually shift in appearance, creating an experience that exists between image and object. Working largely within monochromatic registers, Ravi Shankar’s reliefs encourage close observation while maintaining a restrained and contemplative presence.

Ganesh Selvaraj’s Intricate Paper Constructions

In the work of Ganesh Selvaraj, paper-cut forms become tools for mapping interior and psychological landscapes. Organic and geometric elements repeat and intersect across the picture plane, creating compositions that appear simultaneously ordered and dynamic.

His works explore how repetition can generate transformation. Individual forms are reiterated until they become part of larger visual systems, revealing relationships between pattern, structure and change. Light and shadow further activate these surfaces, making the physical act of cutting inseparable from the exploration of space, perception and materiality.

Saravanan Parasuraman’s Geometries of Connection

Saravanan Parasuraman’s practice centres on the circle and sphere as recurring visual and conceptual structures. Through the organisation of geometric components, his works evoke systems that operate across multiple scales, from microscopic forms and cellular structures to planetary bodies and celestial arrangements.

His investigations into density, colour and material create compositions that recall the visual logic of mandalas and yantras without directly representing them. Instead, the works become reflections on recurrence, interconnectedness and the passage of time, bringing together the microcosmic and macrocosmic within a shared visual field.

Yuvan Bothysathuvar and the Power of Accumulation

Yuvan Bothysathuvar approaches abstraction through accumulation and transformation. Using everyday materials such as newsprint, plywood and assorted papers, he creates intensely coloured works through a process of rolling, layering and assembling.

What initially appears as a unified abstract surface gradually reveals itself as a complex aggregation of individual linear elements. His works move between flatness and volume, surface and depth, while colour functions both as a structural device and a perceptual experience. Through subtle variations in tone and density, the compositions remain active and constantly evolving in the viewer’s eye.

Visitor Information

Takeaway

Through paper constructions, geometric systems, colour studies and sculptural interventions, Visual Disobedience examines how contemporary artists continue to expand the language of abstraction. The exhibition brings together four distinct artistic voices that transform familiar materials into complex spatial experiences. By encouraging viewers to question established perceptions of line, depth and form, the exhibition contributes to ongoing conversations about material innovation and contemporary visual culture.