Abhishek Verma’s oeuvre is characterized by his endless traveling, shifting & the alteration of environs that he is frequently facing. The burning questions of identity & belonging add to the feel of conflict & anxiety in his mysterious, haunting visuals. He deploys popular idioms to fashion his own personal insecurities. The inclusion of satire & drama is done discerningly to build a story-like quality than being a narrative. The unadulterated contrast & the impact of a spotlight are often used in his works to give a theatrical effect, stemming from his childhood memory of his grandmother telling him stories under a lantern at night.⠀
The painting expresses the artist’s take on choices, that delineate our lives, for better or for worse. Questions pertaining to identity crisis, self-doubt & analyzing one’s intentions are in dichotomy with one another; with the man juxtaposed in a seemingly self-reflective, surrendered, enlightened state of being. The use of spotlight creates a theatrical scene, with the man being in sharp focus, almost as though enacting the climax of a play, the crux of the moment & impending finality. The room creates a feeling of isolation & introspection that one often faces in an urban environment. Reference to the Mahabharata, the line on the wall reads – Here I’m Arjun & Bheeshma as well. Insinuating the end of the immortal Bheeshma by Arjun with the help of Shikhandi, the bed of arrows & water are used as icons to illustrate the episode. On the bottom right we see a fish with an arrow shot through its eyes, a symbol depicting the dexterity of Arjun. The narrative is taken into an urban context, hinting at the self-sabotage, deliberate jeopardy of the essential being, death of hope, feeling of helplessness, a dead end that one encounters in life. There is an air of austerity in the painting, as though the character is frozen in that very state of being, contemplating his condition & he seems to have accepted his doom. There is a conundrum that the artist is trying to address by employing the metaphor taken from Mahabharata, imposing the question of identity & self-actualization onto the viewer, making the viewer a part of the discourse.
Explore more artworks that we have curated for you:
