Badri Narayan brings to his paintings a specificity of vision that is related to his abiding interest in narrative. A devoted student of Indian philosophy and myths, his favoured mode of self-expression remains storytelling. “Narration comes to me naturally,” he says, “I have been fond of telling stories since my childhood.” An accomplished writer of children’s tales, Badri Narayan also enjoys giving shape to his ideas through colours.

His latest exhibition of water colours, concluding today at the Mon Art Gallerie, reflects his interest in folklore and myth-making. Except for a few haunting Cubist images of abandoned houses, he uses mythical entities like kinnaras, yakshas, gandharvas and even mermaids. There are also historical figures like Chandidas and Rami Dhoban, and, finally, a couple of fascinating depictions of Christ.

In terms of technique, Badri Narayan fuses indigenous and European styles. He borrows the distorted perspectives, interlocking colour-grids and the essential mystery from the Cubist tradition, while making intelligent use of cross-hatching. He does not exploit the narrative potentials of his subjects for dramatic effect, but prefers to keep them understated. As a result, the faces he paints are not suffused with emotions, but have a soothing, sometimes sedate, quality about them. Here and there are quirky, surreal touches, as in the odd yaksha hovering over Chandidas who has probably met Rami Dhoban for the first time. It is the menacing presence of this unearthly figure, with his hands seeming to reach for the back of Chandidas’s head (picture), as if to strangle him from behind, that transforms a perfectly mundane moment into something approaching the mysterious, if not the sublime.

The most expressive images in this series are those of the two Christs, one of them embedded in a fiery glow of red and yellow, forehead cast down, his lips starkly outlined. Traces of Gauguin’s The Yellow Christ are discernable here. The companion piece depicts a more benign figure of the Christ, possibly not yet crucified, with a red scarf draped around his neck, pensive eyes and gentle, introspective lips. The inwardness of these two figures reappears on the faces of the abhisarika nayika, the yaksha and the yakshini, and the royal couple enjoying the Holi festival. Each of them has an intensely self-directed gaze, distinct from the expected look of erotic longing. What becomes most arresting, and memorable, in these friezes, however, is the interplay of beautiful, plaintive colours — burnt sienna, rust, yellow ochre.