YUSUF ARAKKAL (b.1945 - 2016 ) was born in 1945 in Chowghat, Kerala. He studied at the Chitra Kala Parishad College of Art, Bangalore. In 1980, he studied printmaking at the National Academy Studios, New Delhi. Since 1975, he has had more than 30 solo exhibitions in major Indian cities. He has also participated in important exhibitions overseas including "Contemporary Indian Art", National Museum, Mexico (1985), "Contemporary Asian Art", National Museum of Modern Art, Seoul (1986) and "Thirty Contemporary Indian Artists", Havana (1989). His work has been shown at the Biennales of Beaumont and Sao Paulo. He received a special award at the 3rd Asian Art Biennale in Dhaka. "Arakkal works in series of related images - from sensual, icon-like ladies to sick in hospital beds and wheelchairs, urchins playing with kites and paper masks, ironic images of paper politicians and empty chairs bearing human presence. Throughout he has depicted working class and village people set against dilapidated walls, among shaky planer divisions, hazy texturing and diffused to sharp and vibrating arbitrary chiaroscuro, all partially enclosed by the frames within a frame motif. His figures in moods ranging from vaguely atmospheric to restless, dejection, quiet joy and sensuousness are flattened as well as plastic, emerging from and nearly dissolving into their backgrounds". Indian Contemporary Art, Vadhera Art Gallery. He lives and works in Bangalore.