Kerala artist Aishwaryan K has long been fascinated by flowers and other botanical forms. He says he is “no nature lover like most”, yet his curiosity is drawn to their shapes, colours, textures, origins, habitats, unusual names and metaphorical associations across cultures. Bringing together this fascination is his ongoing solo exhibition, ‘Where the Flowers Keep Their Counsel’, at Gallerie Splash in Gurugram.
“I love to visualise them in my works, my understanding of their presence and what they would look like as a final picture,” says Aishwaryan.
Curated by Satyajit Dave, the exhibition brings together works made over the last 15 years, from 2012 to 2026. “The works from 2025 until recent were a conscious decision taken to present for the solo, along with many conversations with my curator [Satyajit Dave], who guided me to channel my direction towards nature as the central core since many works from yester years had a connection to nature,” says the artist.
His works bring together colourful flowers, leaves intertwined with human figures, vines that obscure figures and trees that occupy large portions of the pictorial space. For Aishwaryan, the process of transforming what he observes in the world into images is part of the pleasure of being an artist. “Most of us are creatures in the habit of seeing, learning, reading something new. We were made to create things of wonder for our own kind and that stimulates all our senses. The very purpose we are here for and I am blessed to be one of those who enjoys being on the creative side, I thrive in this happiness,” he says.
Born in Palakkad, Kerala, and now based in Bengaluru, Aishwaryan’s works are also informed by his experiences in the city and its green spaces, including Cubbon Park and its numerous flower and vegetable markets. Rather than documenting these places, he picks out details that catch his attention and reimagines them through his own visual language.
“I always notice the most obvious to the least visible. Anything and everything that catches my interest is like a piece of puzzle I get to play around to create an image of my own. I take full liberty as a visual artist to recreate what nature has already made. I love to reinterpret my version of many things already seen or unseen,” he says.
Alongside botanical forms, the works feature objects and gestures drawn from memory — public benches, mobile phones, marbles, thread games, paper folds and spinning tops. Childhood games, in particular, become a way of transforming ordinary objects through movement and imagination.
The artist sees this connection between past and present as an important part of his practice. “It still amazes me that I carry this huge archive of images, incidents, stories, smell, taste etc as memory and they somehow are always triggered to experiences of the everyday present I live as an adult,” he says.
On view at Gallerie Splash, Sector 53, Golf Course Road, Gurugram; till September 15, 11am–7pm.