Balasubramaniam’s (Bala) artwork depicts the transition and metamorphosis of the human soul in a landscape of memories. By depicting the earth on canvas, the multiple layers of soil represent our soul and self. With the dusky sky casting over the painting, our environment too shapes and forms us. Each layer is a part of the human personality, complex and intriguing. Bala plays with the natural invisible force of the wind in the painting, symbolic of events in our life over which we have no control.

As the winds blow, each layer reveals a new part of us—our spiritual self with sea green reminiscent of wisdom and composure, orange recalling a youthful spirit and the deep-seated red being the foundational love and courage that binds humanity. The artists’s work generally plays with themes of transformation. This painting asks us to let our memories wash by, as the wind blows the sand, revealing layers of self yet to be discovered. We don’t need to compulsively hold on to memories, for they will always be a part of us, a part of the canvas of life.