Affairs:' An artist's journal

The ‘Affairs' series seems to be a culmination of the artist's journey thus far. It is a series that represents the trends of today and of the future and that celebrates both the all-encompassing nature of the age of technology and the very personal experience of human interactions.

The artist had always imagined that one day, he would find a way in which to create a piece of artwork that truly expressed all the various elements of his artistic vision, and he found that the computer would enable him to combine mediums which could not physically be mixed. After sketching, painting, photographing, cartooning, and creating linoleum prints, Raghava scans them into the computer and then composes them into one image. The image is printed out in a small scale, and reproduced pixel by pixel in acrylic paint onto a large canvas with the help of billboard painters. A strong believer in activism and social responsibility, Raghava sees this project as the opportunity to support artists who have been rendered obsolete by the technology of the digital printer.

The most daring of his artwork, the ‘Affairs' series is also the most personal. The artist refers to each painting as a ‘journal' of a particular experience, encounter, or relationship. Several of the works have even been inspired by specific pieces of music to which the artist is closely connected. In these works, he has once again reverted to the use of familiar faces as subject material, creating a commentary on his interactions with various individuals.

One of the most striking works in this series is ‘Consuelo,' which expresses the comfort and consolation one can find from an older and more experienced individual. The first image one sees when looking at the painting is the face of a young girl, her sad eyes peering out of the beautiful deep blue. It is only after studying the work for several minutes that the eyes pick up the shadow of the comforter, a woman leaning over the child's shoulder. ‘Stop,' another arresting piece, captures the emotion of an actual phase in the artist's life. The painting depicts the tension between the artist and his teenaged sister during the time of her visit to his studio in Cambridge , MA . While the artist felt responsible for her safety, she, like all teenagers and younger siblings, rebelled. The outstretched hand of the girl in ‘Stop' is a symbol with which parents and all siblings alike can identify.

‘Affairs' is revolutionary not only in the fact that it beautifully incorporates a wide-range of mediums using the technology that is so vital to today's world­, but also because it is the very first series in which one can truly glimpse the inner moments of the artist's life.

Netra Srikanth, 2006