Important Notice

Born into a family of priests in rural Orissa, Jagannath Panda moved to the cities of Vadodara, Fukuoka and London to study painting. Following his education, Panda settled in New Delhi, India's political capital and one of its most rapidly expanding cities. Brought up in the midst of nature, the artist found it hard to reconcile the purity of his childhood experiences with what he encountered in these cities. In several of his large canvases,... Born into a family of priests in rural Orissa, Jagannath Panda moved to the cities of Vadodara, Fukuoka and London to study painting. Following his education, Panda settled in New Delhi, India's political capital and one of its most rapidly expanding cities. Brought up in the midst of nature, the artist found it hard to reconcile the purity of his childhood experiences with what he encountered in these cities. In several of his large canvases, he illustrates birds and animals, seemingly out of place in an environment that has been consumed by the incessant spread of urbanization. Peacocks strut around city rooftops and construction sites, goats wade through pools of industrial effluents, and deer unsuccessfully attempt to graze in sewage.

"Panda's encounters have allowed him to develop a layered aesthetic which combines visual considerations (such as notions of beauty and visual pleasure) and social-psychological commentaries. Panda's motifs often allude to the underlying forces that drive the social mechanism…once decoded [his works] unravel the dichotomies the artist continues to grapple with, between the dictates contained within his dogmatic religious upbringing and his developed and learned critical conscience. An assortment of images addresses sophisticated themes of frustrated desires, unanswered questions, socio-economic injustices and inequalities" (Deeksha Nath, Private/Corporate IV: Works from the Lekha and Anupam Poddar, New Delhi, and DaimlerChrysler Collections: A Dialogue exhibition catalogue, DaimlerChrysler AG, Berlin, 2007, p. 49).

In the present lot, a forest panorama complete with birds and deer that have been rudely transplanted into an industrial wasteland, the artist has layered a dense fog, in shades of gray ranging from dark slate to translucent, over the entire scene. A deer, groomed in light, feather-like brushstrokes, peers inquisitively into the quagmire in which it stands, fruitless in its search for a few blades of green grass to chew on. Panda heightens the ominous overtones of the scene by adding a sinister tail, captured in the middle of a predatory dive, beside the mislaid deer. Playing on the curiosity of the viewer, this canvas poses the question, ‘What next?' More provocatively, however, it forces the viewer to contemplate how such a situation came to pass in the first place.

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