Posted on 6 September 2026:

Kalai Iyattran: I. Sezhian’s Solo Art Exhibition Opens to Acclaim in Puducherry

Puducherry’s art circle gathered in warm celebration on 2 September 2026 as young artist I. Sezhian’s debut solo exhibition —Kalai Iyattran (கலை இயற்றன்), opened under the Adisilbay banner at Family Restaurant, Heritage Town. Running through 29 September, the show offers a generous month for viewers to return and dwell within its world of painting, mixed media and primal vision.

Chief Guest Puduvai Ila Venil, the celebrated art photographer and writer, set a lyrical tone for the evening. “A good photograph is not something we simply look at and walk past; it must touch us and travel with us,” he reflected, before turning to Sezhian’s canvases.

Of the artist’s buffalo paintings, he said, “It felt as though the buffaloes were moving towards me… the painting itself was saying, ‘I am coming with you.'”

He praised Sezhian’s palette as a mark of maturity: “An artist’s colours themselves begin to identify the artist. That is what reveals the growth of an artist.”

He closed with a quiet truth about art itself: “Some paintings look back at us. And for a moment, we live within that space of time and distance—and then we move on.”

Guest of Honour Dr. Gopal Jayaraman, Kalaimamani awardee and artist, admired the work’s raw conviction: 

“His fearless approach to execution gives the works a sense of spontaneity and vitality… an expressive visual language that is energetic.”

Kirti Chandak of TASMAI, Centre for Art & Culture, offered perhaps the most striking read of the artist himself: 

“He looks very calm on the surface, but a storm of emotions is loaded with madness underlying his stillness… willing to challenge himself at every moment, erase the marks made, to be reborn.” She noted the bull and buffalo as Sezhian’s recurring emblem — “a symbol of patience and power, a persona he identifies with.”

Anchored by artist H. Shanmugam, M.F.A., and attended by figures including R. Anbajagane, Ezhilarasan Ezhumale, Kirti Chandak, Devanand Nayak, Christy Antoni, and S. Krishnaraj, the inauguration affirmed Kalai Iyattran as a compelling arrival — one where a young artist’s stillness conceals a restless, reborn energy.

A quiet storm on canvas — one buffalo, one artist, moving relentlessly forward.