Ganapati Hegde’s acrylics-on-canvas portray the rapturously green and radiant landscape of Karnataka’s South Kanara coast, teeming with indigenous plants, flowers, birds, animals and insects. But Hegde serves up nature with a twist. The paintings depict half-real, half-imagined worlds, layered with fantastical and unexpected elements which take you by surprise. Hegde’s otherworldly jungle is peopled by nature’s assorted denizens, from caterpillars and chameleons to monkeys and butterflies, along with a profusion of foliage painted in bright blues, reds, greens and lavenders. And while the man-made world puts in an occasional appearance or makes for an incidental backdrop, it is nature and its furry, feathery, floral and leafy protagonists which take centre-stage. While most of us rue the absence of greenery in our steel and concrete cities, Hegde’s art celebrates its still-vital presence.