There is a quiet intensity in how artist Raghava KK speaks — part philosopher, part performer, and part painter, unlearning everything he once knew. His latest series, Figuring the Edge, at Ashvita’s, channels that spirit through abstraction. This is a body of work born not from a narrative, but the undoing of it.
For decades, Raghava has been known as a storyteller who has blurred the boundaries between art and technology, and emotion and intellect. But here, he steps away from the story . “Stories make us what we are,” he says. “Stories are the cause of many innovations and helped homo sapiens master the world; they are also the source of much destruction, so when you hold on to stories very tightly, they break; I want to show what happens when stories break.”
Raghava KK
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A few years ago, Raghava’s own story broke. After two decades in the US, collaborating across continents, his life collapsed when he went through a divorce. “I was at the top of my game, doing art camps for Oprah Winfrey, Jeff Bezos, then i went through a divorce and suddenly, everything I thought was me, started falling apart,” he says. “So I came back to India, to my mother, trying to make sense of it all.”
His brother, Karthik Kalyan Raman, a philosopher and economist, was going through a similar reckoning. “He began asking me these questions — when the stories that make you break, who are you?” These questions became the centre of Figuring the Edge— each work beginning as a written inquiry, then a sketch, and then a painting. “I spent four or five days just writing, thinking, sketching. I have made hundreds of sketches before arriving at this. Each artwork is accompanied by a question, and the painting becomes the answer.”
Figuring the Edge by Raghava KK
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Thick impastos, shifting pigments, and restless strokes shape the artworks on the wall. “I wanted to create something that allowed me to reinvent myself through the process. After 30 years of painting, I felt the need to paint as if I were starting all over again — to break every rule I have set for myself and make something entirely new.” The ‘edge’ in the series is a stage of being. “While doing this series, I realised that artists are supposed to live on the edge of society, we are never designed for the centre, we are designed to push the boundaries.”
“The art forms are unphotographable and only reveal themselves when you stand infront of it These paintings ask for time. They reveal themselves slowly, only if you stay with them. That’s why I say my paintings are not images; they are like people. As you move closer, they show you their scratches and flaws. The chaos comes into focus. The nearer you get, you realise it’s all a beautiful kind of mess.,” says Raghava.
Born into a Tamil Hindu family in Bengaluru, raised in a Muslim neighbourhood, and educated in a Catholic school, Raghava’s artistic journey is a multitude of perspectives. “I can play my Christmas carols, sing the azaan, and also do my sandhya vandanam.” His canvases reflect this multiplicity, and each viewer sees something different – a figure, a face or a landscape.
With Figuring the Edge, the artist returns to the Chennai art scene after two decades. His canvases turn into a site of tension —between body and image, figure and ground. Through his abstract work, Raghava invites the audience to stand on the edge of art itself and reinvent themselves.
Figuring the Edge, is on at Ashvita’s, Mylapore, till December 15, from 11am to 7pm, Monday to Friday. Entry free.
Published – November 19, 2025 03:55 pm IST
