"There is a tremendous sense of color and rhythm in these paintings... they demonstrate wonderful control of a difficult medium."
Padmashri Jagdish Mittal, renowned art historian 

Deaf artists revive 17th Century art form

VirtualO is a for-profit philanthropic organization that fosters and promotes “differently-abled” artists. Based in Hyderabad, India, it was founded in 2001 by a young business school professor, Baba Prasad (Ph.D., The Wharton School) and S. Chandramouli (Mouli), an internationally-ranked Deaf badminton player. Dr. Prasad, who lives  in the USA invested his personal funds to start and run the organization, and now manages the marketing and fundraising. Mouli manages the operations of the organization full-time in Hyderabad, India.

VirtualO artists use marbling to express their Deaf perceptions

17th century Deccani artists in south India created marble effects in paintings. The Deaf artists at VirtualO, especially Khaled Mohammed, have become famous for their brilliant revival of this lost  art form of marbling (Marbling techniques were also used 2000 years ago by Japanese artists who called it Suminagashi). While these ancient traditions used vegetable dyes, VirtualO artists use oils and acrylics which are more difficult to control.

The ebbs and flows of the paints and the patterns that they are given through long meditation and close control by the artist make the marbling technique very appropriate for Deaf expression. As you will notice, in all these paintings, forms and colors flow into each other in unique ways that reflect the  texture of the non-hearing worlds of our artists. Visual patterns become substitutes for sound patterns. Familial scenes (mother and child, conversations, family scenes), natural landscapes, and rural life portraits display relationships and sense of belonging. In a sense, these paintings become bridges between hearing and non-hearing worlds for our Deaf artists.

We invite you to explore this site and purchase original art and greeting cards.

Our patrons include:

The Raj Bhavan of Karnataka (The Governor's residence), Bangalore, India
His Excellency, Shri T.N. Chaturvedi, Governor of Karnataka, India
The Taj Group of Hotels, Mumbai, India
The Reserve Bank of India