Dhruva Mistry at work at his Vadodra studio

Mistry's next show, New Work: 1999-2019, opened last week at Colaba's Akara Art. The exhibition includes 26 sculptures, including some experiments with the female form as well as his trademark piece where he combines parts of the human body, animals and objects while infusing imagery taken from mythology. So you can expect sculptures of reclining women, a woman sowing a field and human-headed birds.

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Mistry's work stands out for its brilliant palette—from bright yellows and reds to the garish kaleidoscope of greens, blues and oranges—mostly with spray paint. "Steel is an industrial product and spray painting complements the material... like a paint on a car. I liked that as an idea," he says. Even so, Mistry throws in the occasional hand-painted piece in all his exhibitions. Of the sculptures in his latest show, there are a few painted by hand. "Even though I monitor the process closely and lend a helping hand, the spray painting is done by an assistant," he admits. But the hand-painted pieces are important to him because he also sees himself as something of a classical musician. "You cannot outsource singing of the ragas to someone else," he laughs. "So, while on the one hand the spray-painted works are private-readymade, my hand-painted ones are personal and individual."

What makes Mistry's creative process inspiring is the fact that he continues creating these sculptures even as he's recovering from a stroke he suffered a decade ago. Following that he turned to AutoCAD to make diagrams of his sculptures, breaking the form down into a series of steel planes and then getting them fabricated. "I had to learn how to use a computer. Once I did, it became simpler. Nowadays, you can get everything done using the machine. But [in my condition], everything can be a challenge—something as simple as getting around in an auto rickshaw or picking up the brush to paint my sculptures," he says trying to look at the silver lining pointing out that it's his left side that's paralysed. "I am right handed."

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