Born in 1933 at Madurai, Tamilnadu, S. Murugesan is a contemporary sculptor and painter living in Chennai. Murugesan graduated from the then School of Arts & Crafts, Madras in 1956 and joined the same college as a faculty member in 1958. In 1988–89 Murugesan received the national award for sculpture. He retired as the principal of the college of arts and crafts. Murugesan has consistently produced works of eminence in sculptures and paintings for the last six decades and continues to experiment with different media. For his early sculptures, Murugesan prefered to work with stone, terracotta, and bronze and now in his eighties, he produces sculptures in ceramics. Murugesan's sculptures are characterised by three-dimensionality and they need to be viewed from various angles. In large stone sculptures, Murugesan has fused even contradictory figures such as a sage and pot-carrying woman back to back—viewed from one side it is a sage and from the other side, it is a woman. In small-scale sculptures, such a fusion of two different figures or surfaces create a strong visual impact on the viewers. Art critic Ashrafi Bhagat calls this quality of Murugesan's sculptures a presentation of fractured realities. In paintings, Murugesan adopts colourful narratives that again make one aware of multiple realities. This module presents two image galleries of Murugesan's works: one has selected works from his sculptures, and the other selected works from his paintings. A critical overview article studies the fragmented realities of his works.
