"If you were to ask Prof K G Subramanyan why he began doing reverse paintings, the chances are that he would say cryptically, "Well, there were some of these glass sheets lying around..." This would be a classic Subramanyan response to a bold question that seeks to unravel in cut-and-dried terms the mysterious, many-layered impulses of the creative imagination.
Once Subramanyan had impishly written,"...So people are encouraged to ask questions. That blue in your painting, what does it mean?" You do not know. But to avoid a second question you say, Maybe I was depressed."
But behind such stratagem of avoiding too much explanation, there lies buried a richly evolved personal philosophy about the search for a visual language. And the need for the art-language to recreate the beguiling and the anguished experiences that the world unfolds, is imperative in the whole creative process."
- An excerpt from the exhibition essay by Ella Datta.