° 1969

Lives in Mysore (IN), born in Mysore (IN).

N S Harsha (°1969) is born in 1969 in Mysore in the state of Karnataka, India, where he still lives. Harsha trains as a painter in his home city and at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Maharaja Sayarijao University in Baroda (now Vadodara, in the state of Gujarat).

He is among the internationally most well-known Indian painters of his generation. His visual language is influenced by historical miniature painting, by the so-called Company Paintings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (produced by Indians for the British who wanted pictures of ‘native life’) and by comic books and didactic illustrations aimed at children. He has collaborated with schoolchildren at several occasions to stage actions and produce installations.

Harsha’s paintings are often populated with multiple small figures, each adding a piece of narrative to the surface, which nevertheless forms a unified visual whole. This method can also be sensed in his installations, which comprise drawing and painting as well as sculpted elements and found objects.