Portraits & Figures

Away from the self-portraits, Keerthi turns to the people around her. The most tender of these is her son, sunk to the chin in a pool of coloured plastic balls, peering out with an absorbed, half-hidden expression while the light catches every glossy sphere around him.

The larger portraits of young women continue her method: a figure rendered with photographic finish - the pattern of a top, the clasp of a handbag - set against dense botanical walls of teal and red. Detail is never neutral here; it is how she holds the person still long enough to be seen.