CHENNAI: Artist Sundaresan Jagannivasan, popularly known as Jagan, returned to his hometown with his third solo exhibition, Cosmic Urban Connect, which was inaugurated at Lalit Kala Akademi on November 11.

Bringing together 84 works in oil, acrylic, mixed media and pen on paper, the exhibition explores the relationship between cosmic energy, urban life, nature and human connections. Organised into five thematic sections — Cosmic Realms, Urban Pulse, Inner Worlds, Nature & Flow, and Cosmic Kinship — the collection offers varied interpretations of the universe and everyday life.

For Jagan, the exhibition is also a personal homecoming. The son of the late Tamil writer JaRa Sundaresan, who wrote under the pen name Bakkiam Ramasami and was known for his Appusami Seethapathi stories, Jagan says he inherited his father's habit of closely observing people and events.

"I don't write, I paint, but I think I inherited his habit of watching people and events closely. I express my feelings on a canvas," he says.

Explaining the idea behind the exhibition, Jagan says he sees no distinction between the cosmos and living or non-living things. Drawing an analogy with a grain of rice, he traces how rain, soil and a plant eventually become part of the human body, raising the question of where one element ends and another begins.

An engineer by training, Jagan turned to art full-time in 2017 under the guidance of curator MG Doddamani. Having previously exhibited his works in Bengaluru in 2023 and Mumbai in 2024, he says bringing his art to Chennai, where he grew up and where his father belonged, makes this exhibition particularly special.

"It's the first time I'm showing my work to people who knew me before I became an artist," he adds. The exhibition is on view until November 20 at Lalit Kala Akademi.