Gods of the Hindu myth painted in colours of fantasy fill the canvas. Alphabets in Tamil float around so do flying fish, serpent headed men, elephants and birds. Murlidharan's visual appeal is unique in contemporary Indian art, combining high seriousness and an irreverence that seems to have the flavour of the folk arts.

Murlidharan completed his studies at the Government College of arts and crafts, Chennai in 1980 where his teachers Alphonso, Munuswamy, R.B.Bhaskaran and Santhanraj influenced him. He spent a year in Delhi there at the Lalit Kala Akademi he worked closely with reputed artists such as J.Swaminathan and Manjit Bawa. They gave him the confidence to develop his own language by trying out new methods. After his return to Chennai Murlidharan developed a "guru-shishya" relationship with K. Adimoolam. The senior artist helped him to question his roots, allowing him to delve deeper into his artistic psyche.

In the year 1989 he was selected for participation in the festival of India in Sweden. From that trip and the interaction with artists there, came the inspiration for mixed media.

Murlidharan says that he wants to strip down a particular concept of our mythological background in the Vedas to simple and straight form so that there are no pretensions of religious messages being transmitted.

The lyrical qualities of the Tamil script fascinate the artist. Their shapes are an endless inventory of the fantastic. Murlidharan is one of a long line of distinguished artists in Madras who have displayed a keen interest in using text elements in painting. He is also somebody who has given the question of Indianess a novel twist in his own wonderfully honest way. 

He is now living & working in Chennai.