Citing Beauty-reimaging the mundane
One may place frameworks and principles to 'measure' beauty, but it remains highly subjective. And that is essentially because beauty is no quality. It exists in the mind that chooses to see it, or contemplates it. And more than a trained eye, it is the intent that encourages citing this subjective notion of what may be appealing. I am reminded of an anonymous anecdote: 'a man asked an artist, "how do you make such beautiful things from a stone?". The artist smiled. "Beauty is already hidden there. I just remove the extra stone for it to reveal", he said'. There is another aspect beyond subjectivity of the beholder that becomes significant in this process of distilling and extracting; and that is to bring in focus the very essence of things. Philosophically, essence is the key attributes that makes things what they fundamentally are. It is the nature of things and such that it possesses a certain metaphysical characteristic, a specific power, properties, or function that sets it apart from others and makes the thing be the kind that it is. And this leads us to the notions of form and matter. This basic duality in all existence makes the 'whatness' of everything. Further extending this idea brings to focus the raison d'etre, the dharma of all things living and non-living. In the postmodern era, deconstruction was an important approach for both, the study and making of the art. The method critically analysed the internal working and conceptual systems of a discipline, the relational quality of meaning, and question the basic assumptions implicit in forms of expression.
This exhibit brings together young visual-practitioners who in their own unique ways investigate the notion of beauty. In doing so, they reject lofty references. Instead, they draw motivation from their mundane surrounding. Objects that do not get a second glance and scenes that we take for granted become the muse for their art. Rubble and rocks, and even the discarded cake of formed concrete-mix are the references for the works of Suryakanta Swain. A migrant from a rural village in Odisha to the metro city of Delhi, he witnessed a transition that created a sense of rootlessness in his new urban life. His works revolve around the ideas of co-existing and diverse cultures of hyperactive city lives. Its fast paced and constantly changing landscape, non-stop construction activity, deconstruction and decay, leading to restless ambiguity and meaninglessness makes Swain wonder on the existential question of the meaning of life. He chooses found material and layers it with the craft of weaving, as an ode to his roots that also magically makes the discarded an object of desire.
