At the Madras Government College of Fine Arts way back in 1965, N.K.P. Muthukoya began experimenting with a genre that had no precedence in India’s modern art. Morbidity defined the mood of his strokes on the canvas, the theme centred round death and the images looked largely weird by conventional standards. The student’s style was something that didn’t please many, including the institution’s head K.C.S. Paniker, an iconic figure in metaphysical and abstract painting.