Detail: Laxma Goud's prolific career, which spans over four decades, has been marked with tremendous versatility, both in style and medium. He has worked effusively in etching, gouache, pastels, painting and sculpture. Undoubtedly, though Goud is a master draftsman who, against the long-held dictum in the Indian market that an artist can only be successful by producing large-format painting, developed a writhing, bleeding line as his idiom of choice. And, as he fleshes out the possibilities of sketching, he connects the rustic and raw qualities of his practice to his subjects, both their physicality and psyche. He thereby generates a rather intimate relationship with his creations.
Early in his career, in the 1960s, Goud engaged with the erotic. His distinct etchings investigated impulses and aggressive passions within male and female sexuality as well as pan-natural contexts. Hierarchies are completely dismissed as man becomes beast and trees are spotted with vaginal openings– the libidinal and the surreal tread alongside the fantastical and poetic. As he immerses these so-called rural and tribal imagery with Eros, they transcend folklore and unfurl a deeper psychological landscape reminiscent of Picasso, Klee or the Neue Sachlichkeit.
Through the decades, Goud's phallic-centered universe would broaden. By the late 70s, he was working more frequently in aquatint. This subtler medium urged gentle stylizations and distortions – the sharpness of his figures' accessories, or their weathered faces – which, ironically, reflected their more realistic selves. More precisely, Goud's representations tapped into their psychological makeup. And so, his dramatic gesturing, and harsh expressionism were quelled; amidst the softer shadows, there was more room for contemplation. What developed was a dynamic Indian ethos – which included but was not limited to the sexual. However, the palpable textures and fine, linear details are ever-present. Goud remains committed to the sketch-line throughout his career and connects the crude physicality of his subjects to their more delicately exposed psyches. His later works of the 80s are more geometric and playful. His contours are fuller and his line persists, more mature and more resolved.
Goud was born (1940) in Nizampur, Andra Pradesh. He completed a diploma in drawing and painting from the Government College of Art and Architecture, Hydrabad. From 1963 to 1965, he studied mural painting and printmaking at M.S. University, Baroda. He lives in Hydrabad.