Journey - 23

The sounds of the cowbells tinkling and the distant soft lambent dust signalling the return of the cattle at the end of the day. . . This is not a scene from a story but a beautiful slice of rural life. Having lived in rural and urban Odisha before moving to Delhi, I feel a deep connection to rural life and indigenous arts and techniques. Odisha is home to the ancient tribal culture in India. My paintings resonate with the urge to try to depict on my canvas, the intensely sensuous, poetic rhythms of the simple rural and tribal life as contrasted with the urban ethos.

My artistic imagination is spurred by life, by lived experiences and their gestation into something new, something evocative. My series titled Journey is an effort to chart out the changing physical, cultural and social landscapes from the rural to the urban and from the past to the present.

Journey is replete with iconographic and mythological detail innovatively drawing on indigenous cultures, the iconic vintage motifs of modernity, and the present frame, this series is indeed a journey from the primitive existence to the present and the endless invisible chains of unconscious memories and experiences that bind humanity into an endless continuum.