S Harshavardhana gave up a successful career as a bioscientist in 1993 to pursue his love for painting, a passion that remained merely a hobby for many years. Son of the late modern master Jagdish Swaminathan, Harshavardhana’s inclination towards art was almost a given.

Born in 1958 in New Delhi, Harshavardhana holds a postgraduate degree in Biological Sciences from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani and a diploma in Business Management. He worked in senior management positions in the biomedical industry for many years before wholly pursuing his artistic calling.

Harshavardhana is a self-taught artist who displays his vast creative vocabulary in his heavily textured but plainly coloured canvases. Deeply influenced by tribal art and symbols, he creates abstract geometric forms - mostly inverted triangular structures constructed within carefully demarcated areas of colour - that are violently cut into one another. While some of these forms blend in, others create obvious scars, bringing a distinctive character to his works.

The artist’s works have been exhibited in multiple solo and group exhibitions around the world. His solo shows include Enduring Intimations from Far and Near at Gallery Espace, New Delhi, in 2007-08; Seeking the Reality at Indigo Blue Art, Singapore, in 2007; Lines Maketh the Web at Aicon Gallery, New York, in 2007; and Acute, Obtuse and Sometimes Right at Aicon Gallery, California in 2006. He lives and works in New Delhi.