For someone who has achieved so much over the past four decades, it is commendable that veteran artist, S.G. Vasudev, remains an endearingly unassuming personality. A founder-member of the Cholamandal Artists' Village - an endeavour which was set up to help struggling contemporary Indian artists concentrate on their innovative crafts, unfettered by economic constraints - he won the National Award from the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, way back in 1967. This was followed by a string of awards and recognition from the artist community worldwide. Yet, he has no airs about him when he interacts with artists just setting out on the road he has already traversed for miles.

Vasudev's proficiency in copper and enamel murals that embellish the facades and interiors of many buildings in India (and even an Indian restaurant in New York) owes a lot to those early days in Cholamandal, when he tirelessly hammered and chiselled away at metal plates and brass vessels to create decorative pieces that found a market among the tradition-bound public who refused to support contemporary art then. Against all odds, he followed his muse - which guided him across a terrain interspersed with craft and set design towards line drawings and the Tree of Life series that marked his prime. Through his activist-journalist wife, Ammu Joseph, he encounters people fighting for causes like clean environments and women's issues...and their emotions combined with the music inspired by the seas, rivers, mountains and deserts found resolution and expression in his Earthscapes and Humanscapes series.