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Lot 72

 

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In the present lot, Jagannath Panda uses paint and brocade to depict a large crow hovering over what appears to be a dried-up water body. What little water is left is black and unpotable, devastated by the pollutants that are being pumped out from the sewage pipe that runs into it. Painting a typical window-grill on one side of the frame, however, Panda makes this scene appear as if it were playing out in the viewer’s own front or back yard.... In the present lot, Jagannath Panda uses paint and brocade to depict a large crow hovering over what appears to be a dried-up water body. What little water is left is black and unpotable, devastated by the pollutants that are being pumped out from the sewage pipe that runs into it. Painting a typical window-grill on one side of the frame, however, Panda makes this scene appear as if it were playing out in the viewer’s own front or back yard. Voicing his critical assessment of the way in which humans have overrun nature, the artist uses this device to shock viewers and warn them that the result of such irresponsible development could come back to haunt them in the future.

Also implicit in this painting is the artist’s critique of the insular existence of city dwellers, especially in terms of the other living creatures that they share their environments with, or that they have displaced through their urban sprawl. “The crow hovering over the sewage or waste water on the outskirts of the human settlement reflects an integral human quality of human behaviour. While our front lawns visible to the world are well manicured and tended the backyard, invisible to the public’s gaze, is the dumping site, our junkyard. While the city projects an image of the perfect realisation of the civilized world in its stately buildings and public gardens, the disease infested garbage is relegated to areas where only the wastrels and those low on the pecking order will visit. The image supplants the real” (Deeksha Nath, “An Unlikely Beauty” in Jagannath Panda, Nature Morte exhibition catalogue, New Delhi, 2005, not paginated).

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