The 30-odd artists participating in the ongoing, online visual arts graduate show 2021 of MS University, Baroda, displayed a heightened awareness of both current art practices as well as the prevailing political and social situation in India and internationally. The participants are required to have writing skills, too, for they have to explain their ideas in an exoteric style. Quite predictably, the pandemic strongly affected their young minds and this cast its shadow on their works too. Vanshika Babbar’s sharp and clear understanding of neoliberalism, the effects of self-isolation during the pandemic, and the potential for psychic and political anarchy in childhood add up to create the chilling, silent video “Iqbal ko bhi nahi maloom ki Iqbal kaun hai”. She makes innovative use of distortion and animation as powerful tools of social commentary. Joyce Sarah Chacko’s delicate paintings and paper filigree were informed by her observation of her surroundings during the lockdown.

Meet Varvada’s Self Portrait 2020, a series of 12 digital photographs, is a startling metaphor for obliteration as he cuts out blank rectangles in the middle of a variety of scenes, indoors and outdoors. Ganga Narayan explores the ambivalence of her identity through paintings inspired by Indian and Persian miniatures and causing a sense of disjuncture by juxtaposing the most unlikely objects, while Hrutvi Shah takes an arch look at food, culture and everyday life. Her parodies of cookbook illustrations through drawings and ceramics are edgy.

Kunal Singh is a digital artist and his triptych pushes “forward the idea of sustainability nature and technology.” Using the mount board medium, Anushree Rabadia’s clean lines without any trace of irregularity are derived at from the intricate art of weaving. She creates the illusion of softness, even though her medium of choice is not. Her cool is in sharp contrast with Parimal Vasava’s striking experimental use of industrial medium. He causes an upheaval with paint and retro-reflective sheets that flash like glow worms as they catch light. Natasha Umrigar used watercolours and in the brightest of shades, reminding one of the Fauves, to paint whatever she saw around her.