New Delhi’s Art Alive Gallery presents renowned artist Shibu Natesan’s most ambitious watercolour exhibitions, exploring the duality of gaze and self-reflection through a decade of meticulous work.
In an era dominated by digital immediacy, Shibu Natesan invites viewers to pause. His latest solo exhibition, Mirror Man, Mirror Me, opening at Art Alive Gallery on 8th October 2025, is a testament to the enduring power of traditional mediums and contemplative art-making. Spread across two floors, this expansive showcase represents one of the artist’s largest watercolour exhibitions to date, bringing together works that span the last ten years of his practice.
The Artist as Mirror
The exhibition’s evocative title speaks to Natesan’s philosophical approach to art-making. For him, the act of painting is both deeply personal and profoundly social—a dialogue between inner reflection and external observation.
“I feel like a mirror man; I reflect the world around me,” Natesan explains. “Capturing the intensity of the moment is the real subject matter of my painting, rather than a given theme. To me, successful paintings are like mirrors, which help to reveal themselves and they must speak to the people.”
This duality—of looking and being looked at—forms the conceptual backbone of the exhibition. Through watercolour, a medium that demands both precision and surrender, Natesan explores landscapes, portraits, still lifes, and self-reflections with remarkable technical mastery.
Artwork featured: Shibu Natesan | Quarter past eight.
A Visual Vocabulary Rooted in Tradition
Born in Trivandrum in 1966, Natesan pursued formal training at the College of Fine Arts, Trivandrum, before earning a Master’s Degree in Printmaking from M.S. University, Baroda, in 1989. His style marries hyperrealism with surreal elements, paying meticulous attention to light, shadow, and atmosphere—hallmarks that echo the European Impressionist masters who inspire him.
In Mirror Man, Mirror Me, Natesan’s landscapes emanate an ethereal quality, capturing not just places but the atmospheric essence of moments. His portraits—both of himself and others he encounters—reveal the inner character of his subjects through careful observation. The still life works, organically constructed and delicately rendered, demonstrate his deep engagement with painterly tradition while speaking to contemporary concerns about identity and reflection.
Watercolour as Meditation
What makes this exhibition particularly significant is its scale and scope. Watercolour, often considered one of the most challenging mediums due to its unforgiving nature, becomes in Natesan’s hands an instrument of both precision and poetry. Each work in the show bears witness to his technical command and his ability to infuse the everyday with quiet beauty.
“We are very excited to bring Shibu Natesan’s solo exhibition to the audience,” says Sunaina Anand, Founder-Director of Art Alive Gallery. “It is going to be one of his largest watercolour exhibitions in Delhi that will showcase his vast oeuvre over the last ten years. Each work in the show is rendered with precision exhibiting the artist’s mastery over the medium. Inspired by European masters, this solo exhibition is a testament to his ever-evolving visual language – intimate and reflective of societal values.”
Artworks featured: Shibu Natesan | Ophelia (after millais) & A folk Singer from Uzbekistan
Art as Social Reflection
In positioning art as a mirror to society, Natesan’s work gains particular resonance in our current moment. As identity becomes increasingly mediated through screens and digital platforms, his watercolours offer an alternative mode of seeing—one that privileges slowness, observation, and the material trace of the artist’s hand.
The exhibition invites viewers to engage with “the quiet intricacies of everyday life,” finding beauty and meaning in the banal and overlooked. Whether capturing the play of light across a landscape or the contemplative gaze of a portrait subject, Natesan’s work suggests that the act of looking—really looking—is itself a form of care and attention.
A Career of Recognition
Natesan’s career spans decades and continents. He has held solo exhibitions in London, New York, Amsterdam, Mumbai, and New Delhi, with recent shows including Four Favourites and Other Works at Art Alive Gallery in 2024 and Retinal Pleasure in 2023. In 1996, he received the prestigious Uriot Prize during a residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, cementing his place among significant contemporary Indian artists.
Mirror Man, Mirror Me is an invitation to reconsider how we see ourselves and others. In Natesan’s capable hands, watercolour becomes a medium for philosophical inquiry, each brushstroke a question about perception, identity, and the relationship between inner and outer worlds.
Exhibition Details
Mirror Man, Mirror Me | Shibu Natesan
Preview: Wednesday, 8th October 2025 | 6:00 PM onwards
Exhibition Dates: 8th October – 20th November 2025
Venue: Art Alive Gallery, S-221, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110017
Timings: Monday to Saturday, 11 AM – 7 PM
Cover image: Shibu Natesan | Uttarakhand 1
All images courtesy of Art Alive Gallery
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