Anand Channar

A Life in Colour, Form and Experimentation

From the visual energy of India to the cosmopolitan landscapes of the Middle East and beyond, Anand’s artistic journey is one of continuous exploration-across materials, cultures and creative disciplines.

Some artists paint what they see. Anand paints what he discovers.

For more than six decades, his art has been a conversation between imagination and material-between colour and texture, surface and form, discipline and instinct. His canvases do not simply carry images; they reveal the restless curiosity of an artist who has never stopped exploring.

Anand’s creative journey began in Kerala, where he graduated with distinction in Fine Arts from the Ravi Varma College of Fine Arts in 1962. Soon, the young artist exchanged Kerala’s familiar landscape for the creative energy of Bombay, now Mumbai. Working with advertising agencies introduced him to the precision of visual communication, while further studies at the Sir J. J. School of Applied Art expanded his understanding of composition and design. By 1969, he had established his own graphic design studio.

Then came another horizon.

In 1978, Dubai became Anand’s new canvas. Amid a city rapidly reinventing itself, he built Alphabetics, working across advertising, marketing and graphic production. Yet painting remained the constant thread running through his life. The Middle East-with its changing landscapes, cultures and international encounters-opened new dimensions in his artistic thinking.

Over time, Anand moved decisively towards a life devoted to art.

And he refused to let the canvas define its own boundaries.

Canvas. Jute. Linen. Metal. Wood. Oil. Acrylic. In Anand’s hands, materials cease to be passive surfaces and become participants in the creative process. Texture becomes language. Layers become memory. Forms emerge, overlap and sometimes extend beyond the conventional two-dimensional plane, giving his work an almost sculptural presence.

His art is therefore not merely something to be viewed. It invites the eye to travel, the mind to interpret and the viewer to experience.

That visual language has travelled remarkably far. Anand has participated in exhibitions across India, the Middle East, the United Kingdom and Canada, while more than 3,000 of his paintings have found homes with collectors and art lovers across the world.

Yet perhaps the most compelling number is not 3,000, nor even six decades.

It is one-the continuing journey of one artist who still approaches every new work with curiosity.

Because for Anand, art was never a destination.

It is an endless act of discovery.