Bhaskar Rao Botcha

Bhaskara Rao Botcha lives in Hyderabad and paints trees. He grew up in Salur, a small town in Vizianagaram, Andhra Pradesh, where he planted a mango tree with his father on the family farm; the subject has stayed with him. He took a BFA in painting at Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, in 1999 and an MFA at the University of Hyderabad in 2001, moving from figurative and street subjects to landscape and then to trees alone. He works in acrylic, building each painting up in layers, and often leaves out green altogether in favour of primary colours, black and white, or greys. Solo shows include Icon Art Gallery, Hyderabad (2012, 2013) and the International Artist Salon of A.R.T., Taiwan (2017 to 2019), with over sixty group exhibitions in India, the UAE, Taiwan and Germany. He took part in the India-Russia Art Festival in St Petersburg, holds a Junior Fellowship from the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Government of India, and received the Prafulla Foundation Award and the state painting award from Potti Sreeramulu Telugu University in 2013.