Presented by Black Cube Gallery, the solo exhibition of Yashika Sugandh’s artworks explores nature, time, memory, childhood, innocence and the present moment.
How many exhibitions can make one feel like they have entered another portal into a different timeline, a different universe, or which have a different vibe from the rest of the city where you live? That is how I felt in the exhibition Vartaman, which is a solo exhibition of the artist Yashika Sugandh, presented by Black Cube Gallery. It is currently being held at Bikaner House, before it moves to Black Cube Gallery. ‘Vartaman’ stands apart in its unapologetic ownership of innocence, yet firmly remains grounded in the present moment, acutely observing nature and the world around.
The works are endlessly imaginative, featuring a pink monkey playing a bagpipe, a horse with balloons for a head, snails with horse heads, and much more. These ideas are executed with great technical proficiency, with some works being miniatures with intricate brush strokes. Other larger sized works are also similarly intricate and delicate, and one remains awe-struck with both the big picture and the minute details. “To say Sugandh is technically skilled would be an understatement.” Says Sanya Malik, the curator and director of Black Cube Gallery. “Her years of rigorous training in miniature painting, especially her early, near-spiritual apprenticeship with Badrinarayan ji at Jaipur’s City Palace – reveal themselves in her soft but precise linework, her economy of gesture, and her meditative repetition.”
Many of the works utilise not just visual language, but sensory and audio experiences too. There are works like the “Lage Raho” series, where you can touch the work and hear the sounds of music and nature from the box. Press a chameleon in “Vartaman”, and you’ll hear one slurping its tongue. Some works are sculptures, like a playful, colourful stool called “Sukoon.” It was placed in a corner which resembled a “kids’ corner”, complete with a work entitled “upar neeche”, which resembles a snakes and ladders style game on a sculpted table. There are works of words in Hindi such as “Papeeta”, “jal” and “surya” and names of cities such as “Mumbai” and “Dilli” where the Hindi alphabets rotate like the hand of a clock. Some works are actually clocks, where in the different hands are intricately designed. Everyday objects which form the core memories of many of our childhoods like playstation joysticks, buckets, cassettes, fans, ice creams, are designed with intricate carvings of nature, blurring the lines between human-made and natural.
Innocence
The most noticeable theme of this exhibition is that of “childhood” and “innocence.” Sugandh obviously drew inspiration from her own childhood, and recounted those memories in creative and imaginative ways, but the works are more than just mere childhood memories. Sugandh very skillfully relates her childhood with that of the viewer, and ultimately through her works creates a safe space for not just her own inner child, but all of ours as well. It would be a mistake to conclude that all these works are meant for children, because as much as these works might appeal to the younger crowd, they’re really meant for us adults who have been too caught up in the practical demands of our lives and the weight of adulthood realisations, to pause and reflect on our childhoods. There’s a lot of self-help talk on the internet about “inner child healing”, and Sugandh manages to genuinely achieve that for her inner child, thus providing a safe space for our inner child to come out and play. “I never really got to be a child. I feel that I missed my childhood and there are parts of it that I lost, so I try to recapture that in my artworks – the playfulness, the carelessness, and even the naughtiness. I enjoy the process and stories, which might sometimes feel childish, but I love them. They are my source of joy, and I will keep trying to share it with everyone else”, she says in a conversation with Amisha Chowbey. These works ask us to pause and relish in our neglected innocence for just a moment. This was the aspect which stuck out to me the most, as innocence is something I think about a lot, particularly living in a fast-paced city such as Delhi, where innocence can sometimes be dismissed as a vulnerability.
“Her morphologies are emotional more than anatomical; they allow her to sketch a world in which difference coexists without domination, and in this cohesion, we find a deeper pedagogical impulse: what if play is not a distraction from seriousness, but its clearest expression? This childlike play in her practice – not the kind that distracts, but the kind that heals, brings to life her imagined ecosystems populated with mischievous birds, crossbred creatures, and fruit-bodied animals. These elements are not escapist, rather they are re-imaginings of belonging.”
~Sanya Malik
Nature
Nature and ecology is also one of the most prominent themes. Many of the works feature hybrid animals anthropomorphised into situations relatable to the human experience, such as a horse-duck hybrid on a beachball in “Manmani” or a bug with its own personal umbrella in the “overthinking series.” One of the prototype works from which this project developed featured a dove with an umbrella. “For example, one day it was raining, and I saw a dove who was completely drenched and trying to dry her wings.” Sugandh explains. “I saw her and thought how nice it would be if she had an umbrella on her head to shield her from the rain, and so I painted a bird with an umbrella – come rain or sun, she can protect herself from anything!” These hybrid animals in human-like situations may seem random, but this uninhibited imagination stems from acute observation of ecology and the natural world. “There was a bird that came to our balcony and started chirping extremely loudly. I looked at my husband, Rohit and said that it felt like she had a gramophone on her head that was amplifying her voice. I then created an artwork that depicted a bird perched on a chair with a gramophone growing on its head.” It was the pandemic in particular, when humans being quarantined led to animals reclaiming the cities and towns which inspired her to focus on the natural world. “I started thinking about animals and birds reclaiming what belongs to them. What if they take away the wooden chair we had since it belongs to their jungle, and we stole it from them?” She incorporates these inspirations from nature into the works themselves, such as the nests and shells in the series “A Piece of Me Is Now Yours.” She details the wasps and sparrows who created these nests in her balcony and how she observed them, which further fueled the work. Many artists approach environmentalism and ecology from a perspective of warning, and present us with reminders of the ecological systems we are endangering and destroying, which is of course more necessary than ever. However, Sugandh approaches the subject in a different way. Through her observation and imagination, she reminds us that we are a part of nature. The flora and fauna are us, and we are them. The details of the whole message contain imagination, with reversals of roles in the food chain. But ultimately the imaginative pieces convey a realistic whole, placing us and the natural world as part of one, intertwined ecosystem.
Time
Time is another one of the key themes present in the work. The exhibition being titled Vartaman highlights one of the key messages of the show, which is to return to the present moment, and pause. The clocks are a significant part of this message, as the Hindi letters, plants and animals form the hour, minute and second hands on the clocks. Some of them are much more visible clocks, while others require more searching to find the clockwork moving elements. These clocks might be the most mindfulness-inducing clocks, as rather than rush us or keep us anticipating, these clocks call us to simply observe, meditate and just be. There are references to the past with series such as “Garmi Ki Chutti”, and a nostalgia for all of our childhoods. “Time is everywhere in Sugandh’s practice: not as chronology, but as presence. Whether through kinetic movement, the growth of a wasp’s nest, or the aging of found objects, her artworks are slow conversations with time. And perhaps that is her greatest gift – she teaches the viewer how to wait.”
“Here, time is not a linear force. It is a spiral. A rhythm. A softness. Each movement in her kinetic works is not just a technical achievement; it is a ritual gesture.”
~ Sanya Malik
Spirituality
Sugandh balances the childlike wonder with deep spirituality, both in the process of creation and the work itself. “Sugandh’s studio is her sanctuary. She speaks of it as a cocoon, a place she returns to daily as others return to prayer. It is no surprise then, that her mornings begin with art the way some begin with meditation. She describes the act of making as her Amrit Vela, the sacred dawn hours in Sikh tradition,” Malik says. “Another kinetic work called Ardaas [or prayer] that brings to life my belief in praying. The elements rotate for one round and move one step further than the starting position in the next round. At the end of one cycle, you can read the whole word “Ardaas”. Every time you pray, or do some good, it brings you one step ahead in life, and that is what I wanted to depict.” Sugandh explains. “Time is not a threat in Sugandh’s world. It is a medium. Ardaas took Sugandh a year to prototype, proving that she honours her practice with the same time and patience that she teaches us to embody.” Malik expands. Most of the works feature extensive use of Hindi, a stark contrast to the anglophile art world. Hindi is the language which Sugandh expresses herself in more freely. “For her, Hindi is not just a language of fluency, but of feeling. Words like aap, she says, carry a softness that the English you cannot.” Her usage of Hindi-Urdu further communicates the spiritual basis of her work, whilst being subtle, where perhaps usage of English words and alphabet perhaps wouldn’t have.
It is clear that despite the overarching message of positivity, innocence and an endless imagination, the exhibition is far from childish or whimsical, and is as deep as any other with a more “serious” tone. It might surprise some that the artist’s childhood wasn’t in fact as full of play as the works are, in fact, she went through some serious tribulations. Despite that, the focus on positivity stands as a testament to both her artistic and personal strength, and is a lesson in reclamation. Every hybrid organism is a deliberate choice both to convey meaning and comfort the viewer. “Unlike mythological hybrids that are often fearsome, exalted, or cautionary, Sugandh’s creatures are emotionally legible. They giggle, stumble, stretch. They seem as surprised by their own morphologies as we are.” In the times that we live in, and the way in which artists today are interpreting their personal lives and political contexts, ‘Vartaman’ places itself in a unique position in the broader art world.
“In a world that often demands speed, and asks us to look away, her work invites us to notice, to slow down, to soften, to stay a little longer, not out of resistance, but out of reverence.”
~Sanya Malik
Exhibition Details
- Vartaman
- Date: 27th September – 1st October (Bikaner House)
- Timings: 11 AM – 7 PM
- Venue: Living Traditions Centre, Bikaner House, New Delhi
- Extended Venue: Till 31st October at Black Cube Gallery, New Delhi.
All Images Courtesy of Black Cube Gallery
Citizen of The World. A musician, artist and writer. Social media manager at Abir Pothi
