Siva comes from a family of traditional folk dramatists, his famous grandfather having a definitive impact on him and the formation of his artistic idiom. Like Perciyal, Siva has experienced great success over the last two years. Now with patrons in abundance around him, Siva is a more assured, relaxed character. The anxieties and insecurities that were present previously have died down and simultaneously his art has improved and centred on exploring the dramatic dreamscape imagery for which he is known. His paintings are characteristically simple in composition and content; shapes are delineated with dark outline and a single colour often is used to describe form. This style highlights most of all his deft draughtsmanship and skilful pictorial arrangement. Content of his work always has a certain theatricality that relates to his upbringing as well as his personality. His technique and palette have changed a great deal from two years back however. Before there was bright, perhaps garish, flat colour deliberately reminiscent of stage set design. Today, instead, Siva spends a great deal of time experimenting with thin layers of colour beneath the surface of the painting. This under-painting creates a different atmosphere for his work, particularly as his choice of colour has on the whole darkened in tone. His final paintings are dramatic and engrossing like watching a wonderfully surreal opera and then being invited on stage to sing. Siva draws us into a dreamscape or hypnotises us by a single mesmeric, symbolic object like a mysterious pot or levitating South Indian ceremonial palanquin. Look long enough at the work and we ask ourselves instinctively: Why are we here? How did we get here? Meanwhile the artist floats through his works as his classic ghostly male form, gracefully and contentedly watching us ponder.
