Myth, Memory & Marvellous Realities

Myth, Memory & Marvellous Realities

Symbolism and storytelling come together using painting as a language and discovering the meaning of the work as it unfolds. The exhibition featuring works by Amit Lodh, Balaji Ponna, Biplab Sarkar, Kiyomi Talaulicar, Laxmipriya Panigrahi, Muktinath Mondal, Raka Panda, and Vijay Kumar, explores the fluidity of memory and its ability to rewrite itself over time to create variations in personal narratives.

The works of these artists combine a variety of materials and techniques to explore archetypes in personal histories and memories. To tell these stories, they depict everyday objects and materials that have personal significance, but which also have their own histories and cultural importance; weaving together images physically and metaphorically. A combination of expressive dreams, literary narratives and unseen characters blend to create these plethora of paintings, which tread the fine line between myth and reality as told through a variety of contexts and inspirations.

Each of these artists and their unique approach leads to the creation of multi-faceted and layered story structures or narrative assemblages, which can also be read as a personal mythology, alternative history or as a collection of untold stories. Ranging from personal experiences of memory and conversation to a plethora of external sources – film, literature, miniatures, calender art, history, mythology, architecture, kitsch, comic books, and natural history – together as inspiration offer these artists an opportunity to explore themes of truth using their imagination.

The showcased artworks importantly visit contemporary dialogues, constructing macro-narratives through a coding and accommodation of various micro-references, rendering their works with these smaller, anecdotal narratives that in-turn inform and enlarge the bigger picture. The inter-textuality of these paintings are at once evocative and instructional, often feeling reminiscent of a frontispiece. Like any work of art, these ones welcome an ambiguity of interpretations surrounding their reception.