“The world’s a stage, and we are all merely actors. This seemingly simple quote from Shakespeare brings into light how our ‘existence’ and ‘being’ is entwined amongst our daily lives, and how ‘life’ within the confines of our human conditions becomes a theatrical performance. In between all our drama of living & existing, there are certain things which emanate melancholy and brew over the horizon, especially when we witness the passing of ‘time’. We suffer from bouts of nostalgia and a yearning for the times of the past. We are usually torn between the appeal of the old aesthetic and the enchantment of the new age. It is at this juncture that we revere the past, and form strong bonds with our past endeavours by creating customs, traditions, myths and memories. They give us strength to face the changes brought in by the future and its unknown travesties.
This artwork renders an exquisite juxtaposition of a bird (a Falcon) with that of a human body. This anthropomorphic representation is a metaphor in itself. The Falcon is the fastest bird in our biosphere and is known for its precision and speed. These are the attributes which personify a human body, symbolically attesting to our human nature which yearns for control & domination. In this artwork, there is an attempt at a poetic representation of this perplexed anthropomorphism, where there is an enchantment in poise and an aura of light emanating from an empty space. Its various stances are attempts for freedom from nostalgia, with a yearning for ‘timelessness’.
The stone which envelops the narrative is symbolic of strength, it is used in the context of symbolising heaviness, or the ‘weight’ of existence which is in turn juxtaposed with a lightness which emanates from within the narrative. The artwork also employs the strategies of an ‘Inverse’ representation. Instead of defining a dimension that emerges from a surface, it recedes into depth, becoming a highly finished mould. This in turn creates an impressive illusion of a dimensional form where there isn’t any. This stands as a larger metaphor for a changing time; as actors within this huge stage of the world, our being and existence are indeed part of a make-believe ‘Maya’ a grand illusion from within the confines of an eternal human condition.