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A. Balasubramaniam is fascinated by the emergence of form and he places equal emphasis on its material as well as immaterial incarnations. In his work, emptiness becomes as real and as poignant as the palpable and he finds influences in the work of Anish Kapoor and Yves Klein. Using fire, as one would a paint brush, Balasubramaniam burns a series of holes into his page, allowing its pristine white to dissolve into charred edges, revealing pools of rich color in its wake. Commenting on this series, D. Talwar suggests, "Fire, an elemental component of destruction and creation, has been used by Bala to accomplish these dual yet opposing functions in a series of monoprints. Within a controlled setting, the artist allows a fire to burn through paper, creating a series of abstract forms. Here the course of action and reaction, cause and effect, and finally destruction followed by construction, exemplify the artist's belief in the cyclical nature of things" (D. Talwar, Transition and Transformation: A. Balasubramaniam, and Ranjani Shettar, Amherst, University of Massachusetts, 2005, p. 10)