Himmat Shah obit: The sculptor who expanded boundaries of form, material<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cThe inspiration comes not only from artists but also from life itself: Indian cities, folk traditions, and even philosophy. Artists like Bhupen Khakhar and Nalini Malani have been important references, as are the oral tales and rituals of Odisha, where joy and melancholy live side by side,\u201d adds Panda, who holds a BFA from BK College of Art and Crafts, Bhubaneswar, an MFA in Sculpture from MS University, Baroda, and another MFA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Arts, London. <\/p>\n
Guardians of the Invisible City, 2025, a work by Jagannath Panda, acrylic, fabric, pigment, glue on canvas<\/p>\n
In his ongoing exhibition, he has created works that surprise with the seamless blend of symbols of man, machine and nature in the same frame, creating what one can distinctly call an aesthetic conflation. The disparate elements hold their individual identities yet the sum of the parts remains dominant and pleasant. <\/p>\n
The kaleidoscope he creates, for instance, in the mixed media work Echoes of the Microcosm II, shows cellular entities arranged in harmony with elements of nature such as clouds, yet cut through by a thick, steely line that can be interpreted as an anthropogenic footprint. By melding industrial aesthetic with those of Mughal art and architecture, Panda creates the very epitome of conflation. <\/p>\n
Similarly, The Unseen Rhythm, a circular mixed media work measuring 43.5 in. in height and width both, is exactly that \u2014 a visually poetic expression of the rhythm that runs this planet, adjusting its cycle regularly as per newer environmental stresses induced in the Anthropocene.<\/p>\n
With more rhythm and less cacophony, Jagannath\u2019s work has veritably pushed a newer level with this exhibition, where some of the most distinctive pieces are those that blend his hardcore contemporary aesthetic with recognisable elements of Mughal art, such as the uniquely stylised clouds and the eight-pointed star; that latter commonly seen in well-known Mughal monuments such as Akbar\u2019s tomb in Sikandra, a suburb of Agra in Uttar Pradesh. <\/p>\n
Poetics of viscerality <\/p>\n
If Jagannath\u2019s kaleidoscopes are entrancing, the works by Pranati, largely tactile and with their predominant yet unobtrusive use of red across materials, catch attention. It is immediately obvious that her works are more intimate, internal and personal in nature than Jagannath\u2019s as they venture into spaces of blood, relations, and connections. <\/p>\n
Pranati is known to work slowly, intuitively, with materials that are light and intimate: cloth, net, glue, and paint. Her works in this exhibition, as per the gallery, exist in a space between tension and tenderness, where mesh and netting provide structure while simultaneously allowing the thread to spill through in a symbolic act of resisting containment. <\/p>\n
In Transience I, 2025, a work by Pranati Panda, in ply, fabric, synthetic thread, cotton thread, glue, ink and acrylic colour.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, thread and textile are natural languages. Thread is not just a material. It is a thought, an emotion, a memory stretched into form. Again and again, my work returns to the red thread: a lifeline, a pulse, a soft tether to what lies beneath the surface. It resembles blood: not only as a symbol of life, but as an index of vulnerability, connection, and the quiet endurance of the self. In my hands, thread becomes an extension of the body, winding and unwinding like breath, like memory, like time,\u201d says Pranati. <\/p>\n
While on the one hand, a work like Play House of the Mind \u2014 watercolour, ink, thread and glue on handmade paper \u2014 evokes images of relationships, unions and procreation because of the fluid and aqueous red, Shades of Sunrise, made in aluminium net, PU paint, fabric and thread, is a comment on how all of it impacts the mind, thereby influencing the growth of temporal human connections. <\/p>\n
The innovative use of fabric as small globular beads on the body of the spider in Becoming I and Becoming II, attest to Pranati\u2019s meditative practice. In fact, the long limbs of spiders in Becoming I and Becoming II evoke the most famous artistic spider of the world, Maman by the French American artist Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010), a 30 ft-high creature in steel and bronze, stationed at multiple locations in the world such as the Tate Modern in London and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, among others. <\/p>\n
Becoming I, 2025, a work by Pranati Panda, in ply, fabric, synthetic thread, cotton thread, glue, ink and acrylic colour.<\/p>\n
It is not a surprise that Pranati mentions Bourgeois among artists she considers important. \u201cArtists like Louise Bourgeois, Frida Kahlo, Eva Hesse have been important to me, but so have everyday women whose stories rarely enter history,\u201d says Pranati, who too is a graduate from BK College of Art and Crafts, Bhubaneswar, and holds an MFA from the College of Art, New Delhi.<\/p>\n
The very viscerality of Pranati\u2019s works instantly imbues them with a feminist tone, which, however, is not belligerent, but only a statement of facts. She says, \u201cIt is impossible to escape gender; it enters my work not as an agenda but as a lived truth. The dilemmas women artists face \u2014 between visibility and invisibility, between tradition and freedom \u2014 resonate with me. However, I do not see myself limited to \u2018women\u2019s issues.\u2019 My practice moves between the deeply personal and the universal. For me, gender is not a constraint but a lens; it allows me to speak of endurance, moment, memory, and survival in ways that are both intimate and expansive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Multiplicity of narratives <\/p>\n
While the two solo shows bring spotlight on two very distinctive practices of Indian art, between themselves, they also give an idea of the concerns that contemporary Indian artists are dealing with. Jagannath says: \u201cThe contemporary Indian art scene is vibrant, restless, and constantly negotiating with history. My generation has had to carry the legacies of modern masters of the 1940s\u2013\u201960s, but instead of being intimidated, I think we have been energised.\u201d <\/p>\n
He adds: \u201cOur concerns have shifted: we are dealing with globalisation, ecological collapse, migration, gender, identity, and the pressures of urban growth. Many artists of my generation draw from tradition but reimagine it for fractured times. The political climate inevitably enters our work, but often through layered symbols rather than direct commentary. The lasting impact, I believe, will be in the multiplicity of voices: how we have expanded the map of Indian art beyond one dominant narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is this multiplicity of narratives in Indian art that these two solo shows underline as also the harmony that is possible despite divergent views and practices, a vital lesson in a world where all things, including personal relations, are transactional, ephemeral, and even disruptive. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The artist signature \u2014 Christo and Jeanne-Claude \u2014 is one of the most endearing stories of how two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-44050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}