Delhi-based artist Jagannath Panda is taking art lovers in the Capital on a journey into the natural and unnatural spaces that people create to co-exist with all living creatures, while also reflecting on the urban constructions that have taken over spaces. Derived from belief, culture and form, his imaginative canvasses use a deconstructive approach to better understand everyday living.
Panda’s abstract artworks are constructed like a collage with papier mâché, rice paper, rice weed, fabric, auto paint, plywood, and randomly salvaged items such as Lego and plastic toys from his son’s childhood or cutouts from almanacs, a gardening guide, old fabric and photographs.
Each frame is an assortment of materials and thoughts. He plays with his colours and materials with tactility to unlock unseen worlds and to perceive what exists beyond the tangible world. According to him, it highlights solace. The solo exhibition, Echoes of Unfathomed Worlds is on at the Vadehra Art Gallery.
Panda, says, he likes to play with art, amalgamating materials and techniques, to focus on the gap in comprehension of things around. He also likes to intentionally cause rifts in his diverse subjective creations. His memories, philosophy and detailing leave the viewers with perceptive impressions and push the boundaries of imagination and preconceived realities.
The ongoing exhibition Echoes of Unfathomed Worlds mounts over two dozen of his art works including canvases, photographs and mixed media installations. His combination of objects or people in motion and colliding them in a fusion of colours defy the conventional theories of composition and symmetry.
Panda’s canvases rivetingly expand the forms and structures in his work, fusing and warping different worlds all developing at once, and seamlessly blending the lines between art and craft and the various artistic mediums that he chooses to work with.
For instance, in one of his focused canvasses, he uses photographs of Odissi dancers receiving instructions from their instructor. To this he adds an assortment of wood, auto paint, wallpaper, cloth, and colors and freezes the frame in such a way that you cannot take your eyes off it..
Panda explains his blend of various materials and ideas and the purpose behind it, “I strive to convey a harmonious fusion of diverse things to engage the viewers in a multi-dimensional experience.”
”The seamless integration of ideas, images, textures and concepts, and the collision of colours challenge preconceptions, spark curiosity, and encourage deeper appreciation of the language of beauty in diversity,” adds Panda.
“There is a merging of several realities, his works are like a living sensation, stirring up profound depths about the world we live in and the universe,” says curator, writer and film-maker Premjish Achari, in his note.
On at Vadehra Art Gallery, D-53 Defence Colony; Till January 19; 10am to 6pm