Jagadish Chitrakar, primarily a doodle artist, started delving into art in 1977 and had enough works for an exhibition by 1979. It was his art show ‘The Inner Eye’ that revealed the artist in him, garnering enough attention and acknowledgement from the audience, which eventually encouraged him to give up his career in socio-economic research and pursue art full time. In the decade that followed, his art became his ticket to various countries. However, towards the end of the ‘80s he was diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder which, while never made him stop, definitely hampered his pace of progress.

The good news is, the artist seems ready to make a comeback, even if it’s at the dusk of his life. Chitrakar is slated to put up paintings on display at Yala Mandala in an exhibition that opens on Friday, July 13. ‘Sketches by Jagdish Chitrakar’ will feature paintings which in the artist’s words ‘do not provide explanation or interpretation to the work’ and have been created “out of void, out of nothingness, reaching infinity.”  

“Explanations are boring. They eliminate the mystique, the beauty of the puzzling effect of a creative work,” says Chitrakar talking about what one can expect from the exhibition. “Titles of the work serve as some clues which I leave to the viewers to make their own explanations and interpretations.”

 The exhibition will be open every day (11 am - 7 pm) until September 13.