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Studio 4 : Beyond the Body
Where the body in the previous room turned inward upon its own flesh and form, here it steps outward, dissolving into the world around it. The figure does not exist in isolation; it is always in conversation with what surrounds it. In this room, the body steps into landscape, weather, growth, and decay, one element within a larger field rather than the sole subject of the frame. The boundary between figure and ground begins to dissolve; the self is porous, continuous with the world it inhabits. Where other rooms turn inward or confront the body directly, here the figure opens outward, finding its reflection in cycles beyond its control, the push and pull of seasons, the slow persistence of growth, the quiet fact of impermanence. To be a body, these works suggest, is also to be part of something larger.
Bhaskar Bordoloi conjures a dense, dystopian mysticism, Lovers holding tenderness and disquiet within the same unsettled frame. Deepak Kumar sets Delhi's concrete growth against Bihar's agrarian rhythms, The Native Grassland questioning whether cities and nature compete for space or might coexist. Hasmukh Makwana channels Saurashtra's beadwork traditions into contemporary form, Jeff Koons visits Saurashtra pairing a beaded balloon dog with a traditional bead-worked elephant beneath a flowering tree.
Mousumi Rajak draws on the spatial language of miniature painting to bring attention to ordinary, often invisible lives. In Domestic Wall, the boundaries of the home echo the wider restrictions imposed by society. Thukral & Tagra fold migration and consumer culture into immersive, multi-sensory environments, Dominus Aeris - facies floating architecture as a dreamlike island embedded with the socio-political undercurrents of Gurgaon and Chandigarh.
Thamshangpha Maku draws on Naga tribal iconography and native flora and fauna, Pleasure over Matters - 1 sitting with the estrangement of being both inside and at the periphery of one's nation. Karan Shrestha in The National Park Expands alludes to another side of the general positive idea of biodiversity protection and expansion plans, where the extension of the park comes at the expense of the livelihood of indigenous communities. Puja Mondal reinterprets Indian miniature painting's discipline in watercolour and tempera, her Forest of Despair III series carrying meditative practice into a quietly hopeful register.
