LAXMA GOUD

Born in 1940 in Nizampur, Andhra Pradesh, K. Laxma Goud completed his diploma in Drawing and Painting from the Government School of Art and Architecture, Hyderabad, in 1963; he then went on to study Mural Painting and Printmaking at the Faculty of Fine Arts at M.S. University, Baroda, from 1963 to 1965. Goud displays versatility over a range of mediums, from printmaking, drawing, watercolour, gouache and pastels to glass painting and sculpture in bronze and terracotta. Over the many years of his artistic career, he is known to have moved from one medium to another with élan. Fellow artist T. Vaikuntam, in one of his interviews, reminisces that it was Laxma Goud who introduced him to the art of sketching and made him aware of the possibilities of this medium.

When one looks at Goud’s work, rustic, raw, and potent might be the first words that come to mind. His portraits of men and women represent the dynamic Indian ethos rather than particular individual identities. A recurrent theme with the artist is that of the erotic, treated as an active and powerful aspect of male and female sexuality and existence. Goud’s work is dramatic; his protagonists are raw and vivacious in their appeal, imbibed with energy that reverberates through his strokes and textures. Most of Goud’s art is centered on the rural, recreating landscapes from his childhood as if they were frozen in time. In the artist’s later work, his figures turn softer, more introspective than brash in their outlook.