One thinks of Indian art as being very Westernised , but in the past few years the traffic has been the other way with painters like the Italian Clemente, living in Madras for several months each year and the sculptor Stephen Cox being profoundly influenced by his encounter with the craftsmen there. Since his visit Kaleka’s work has, if anything, become less European, changing from surrealism to a richly coloured metaphysical realism based on allegory. In his complex and carefully orchestrated pictures, conjurer’s appear to fool the eyes of their public with cleverly staged tricks. One such genie produces flames from the palm of his hand to beguile a man on a bicycle, another the image of a sailing ship to charm a tailor with his spell. But the miracles are mirages – merely pictures projected on to a screen. One might suppose that the conjurer represents the artist and his seductive powers, but these dream-like pictures are political allegories. ‘They are like aphorisms or maxims,’ explains Kaleka, ‘that comment on political reality by oblique means. The conjures are politicians who play with and manipulate people’s perceptions, and the sleepers those who fall under their spell. I want to avoid propaganda but not protest – agitprop is too narrow and open to misinterpretation. During the Bangladesh War, for instance, journalists were invited to photograph an execution of prisoners that was staged especially for the cameras. It was a real event yet, at the same time, it was a falsification. Because the paintings are stylised, they could never be mistaken for a chunk of reality – they are clearly my invention’.

Sarah Kent is the art editor of the weekly London "what's on" guide Time Out