Artist Balan Nambiar

Spotlight on: Sculpt in Time

Who: Balan Nambiar

Significant Contemporary Artist of our times

He has won these awards: National Award of the Lalit Kala Academy (1981), Karnataka State Lalit Kala Academy Award (1980) to Kerala's highest state award, the Raja Ravi Varma Puraskaram (2015)

Conducts free art classes at NGMA on Sundays

Where: At the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA)

Why: His drawings, with pastels and conte, and paintings from 1957 onwards...The first painting displayed - My room (1962) - is a beaut. Very Van Gogh.

His sculptures, in stainless steel (contains chromium, non magnetic) and mild steel (contains carbon), are precisely designed, some following the Golden Mean Ratio, and laser cut. See the Rice Plant - his first stainless steel sculpture - conch (Valampiri Shankha) and his 3D Shree Chakra. These are abstract renditions of traditional motifs. Table top sculptures of cacti - cute.

His jewellery enamel art, the reds, blues and yellows are brilliant. Viterous enamel and silver are added as a layer on copper. An exacting art which he learned from the late artist Paolo De Poli, who is considered the greatest enamel artist of the last century. He is one of the few Indian artists who can use 135 colours. Personal favourite? The Altar

Photographs of Theyyam ritual art practised in North Kerala. Nice.