Painter's Imaginative Forest: Forest’s Truth Painting

Magunta Dayakar is a self-taught painter and writer from rural India, whose artistic journey began not in an academy but in the quiet study of American art books he discovered as a young man. Without institutional training, he developed his own understanding of color, composition, imagination, and the inner structure of nature through years of solitary practice and reflection. Today, the same rural boy who once learned from American books has authored more than fifteen titles on painting—books that are now read and studied by art students in the United States and around the world. His writings combine practical clarity with philosophical insight, offering a perspective shaped entirely by personal exploration rather than academic systems. His books are available worldwide on Amazon. His recently released title, Why Do Forest Paintings Look Like Landscapes? : The 13 Concepts Every Forest Painter Must Know, shares the concepts and philosophy behind his forest paintings. As a painter, Dayakar is known for his imaginative forest-floor paintings, where chaos and order meet through bold knife work, abrupt transitions, and a deep respect for nature’s raw intelligence. His work reflects a lifelong belief that true art emerges from instinct, struggle, and sincerity rather than formal training or external approval. He continues to paint and write with the same independence and inner purpose that shaped his life from the beginning. Rather than painting the appearance of forests, Dayakar focuses on executing their behavior—how natural forces act, collide, and leave visible traces over time. Artist's Statement In a forest, nothing stands alone. Light, soil, roots, insects, moisture, decay, and growth all work at the same time. Because of this, the forest cannot be seen clearly as an object — it can only be felt. When we enter a dense forest, our mind changes. We stop measuring distance. We stop identifying shapes. We become alert and aware instead of relaxed observers. These paintings try to recreate that experience. The marks, textures, and broken colors are not leaves, branches, or ground. They represent overlapping events — things happening together. There is no fixed foreground or background because the forest does not present itself in layers. It surrounds us from all sides. So the painting is not a view of the forest. It is a space where the viewer stands inside it. I call this a psychological field — a place where perception shifts from looking to sensing.