Kerala-based contemporary artist, Pradeep Puthoors art is dedicated to a fantastical world that is entirely his own. Strange creatures and imaginatively designed buildings and structures, colourful and playful, clutter his canvas. Few know that Puthoor used to be an illustrator and graphic designer in Bombay who painted at night as his own private passion. Illustration is certainly no surprise when one looks at his art today. Many works demonstrate the distinctive look of this skilled artform: precise linear draughtsmanship and flat, bright, highly choreographed colour. In this recent set of paper works acquired by The Noble Sage one can see the most minute of lines kept consistent in density and clarity. The exactitude is quite breathtaking. 

The magical mechanics of achieving a Utopian civilisation appears to be a common factor of much of Puthoors work. In Pink Soul Island (2009), Puthoor uses a wide palette and a subtly symmetrical composition to depict an alternate version of a city skyline like that of Manhattan or Mumbai. Structures have bird heads at their peak, reminiscent of totem poles and other tribal imagery (a common motif in his work) though have a futuristic character too. This alternate urban universe has an immediate madcap appearance, however, because of the seas peaceful horizon in the background and the harmonious composition, the bizarreness of the scene soon relaxes into normality before the eye. The pink soul city appears mesmerising, inviting us to forget its unreality. Puthoor waves a wand over us leaving us spellbound by the possibility of an idyllic urban existence. In other works such as Ways of Impressing (2009) and Survival Tips(2009), Pradeep investigates the pervading eroticism of all natures objects. In some phallic imagery is rather lucid, in others the sexual message comes through motifs such as thorns, venus flytraps and strange erogenous-looking forms.