Laxman Aeley

Laxman Aelay is a Hyderabad-based artist renowned for his vivid celebration of rural and village life in Telangana. Born in 1965 in Kadirenigudem, Nalgonda district, into a family of traditional weavers, he trained formally at Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University, earning his BFA and MFA before completing a PhD at the English and Foreign Languages University.

Aelay's paintings are instantly recognizable for their bold palette of earthy reds, greens, and yellows, and for the women who anchor nearly every composition — depicted with sun-tanned skin and large, goddess-like eyes that lend his figures a quiet monumentality. His canvases brim with the textures of village life: folk musicians, harvest scenes, temple festivals, and everyday domestic rituals, rendered across acclaimed series such as the Poolamma Series and Song of the Village. Once a signboard painter and film poster artist, he later designed the official emblem of Telangana state, cementing his place as one of the region's most distinctive visual storytellers.