If an artist feels low, it shows, as it does in visual artist Onkar Kshirsagar's combined art mix-media creations spanning over last three months. Immediately after the national lockdown was imposed on March 26, Kshirsagar started visualising a barren black-and-white prakruti (nature) image. The national mood was somber and it reflected in his use of black rangoli, feathers, terracotta clay and ceramics.

Three mix-media works—titled Night, The Day and My Moon—on which he spent time in April, also followed the same colour scheme, spelling out the desolation. In fact, the home-bound 36-year-old chuckles while clarifying that his moon is not a romantic 'chanda', but an intriguing satellite created with white rangoli on plywood. "When you are trapped in your flat and a pandemic derails usual human activity, the sun, moon and stars emit gloomy thoughts. I used to count each day, and yet to no avail," says the artist, who also teaches art at a Borivli school. He currently works from his Charkop flat, unable to access his studio in the neighbourhood.