Desire, form, and formlessness converged in Triloka, the annual show at Srishti Art Gallery, where three artists Arpan Sadhukhan, Poojan Gupta, and Unnikrishnan C unfolded distinct worldviews. Their works, drawn from personal experiences and imaginative inquiry, spanned diverse mediums but meet in a shared space of introspection.
The first work to command attention was Folded Frequencies by UK- and India-based artist Poojan Gupta. From afar, it glimmered like a silver sheet of metal; up close, it revealed an unexpected material — discarded pharmaceutical blister packs. Poojan said, “Three hundred million tonnes are produced annually, with 50% ending up as landfill. Each punctured pocket marks a moment in time, a temporal journey towards personal healing. I find this moving, and this realisation has informed five years of artistic experimentation.”
Since 2020, she has collected more than 3,50,000 used packs across India and the UK, transforming them through assemblage and installation into monumental sculptural reliefs. “There are aesthetic and ethical qualities that exceed their quotidian status. I’ve developed this idea as the key component of my practice,” she explained.
Her other works, Read Me and Constructed Journeys, extend the dialogue between modern medical procedures and traditional rituals of healing, underscoring how paths — whether physical, emotional, or medical — unfold as assemblages shaped by circumstance.
On the adjacent wall, Arpan Sadhukhan, a Kolkata-based artist, probed the uneasy entanglement of identity and consumerism. “All our emotions are tied to the market. Our identities are constantly reshaped by a consumerist approach. That conflicting sense of self is what my work reflects,” he said. The pandemic marked a turning point in his practice. In 2020, he created his first large-scale monochrome woodcut — a 30-foot piece — and has since remained devoted to the medium. “Until I’ve explored every flavour of black and white, I don’t think I’ll stop,” he noted.
For Triloka, Sadhukhan presented five woodblock sculptures and a series of large prints. Rather than concealing his carved plywood blocks behind paper impressions, he foregrounds them as sculptural works in themselves. Arranged like puzzle pieces, they can be flipped or rearranged to shift both image and narrative.
In All That Never Heals, brand identity overshadows personal identity, rendering individuals ‘headless’ and fragmented. No Longer Sure Where It Goes reflects on a rape case in Bengal and the fleeting nature of outrage. “On social media, everyone was protesting. But within a month or two, the memory was replaced by trends, songs, and reels. That sorrow was wiped away,” he recalled.
His largest piece, All Our Yesterdays Have Lighted Fools — its title borrowed from Macbeth — reframes Shakespearean despair in a consumerist context. Spanning 10 by 7 feet, the chaotic tableau depicts selfie sticks, soda cans, a tree rooted in concrete, and a bird lured by a synthetic flower. The work, which took six months to complete, captured the simultaneity of chaos and indifference.
Across the room, Unnikrishnan C from Kerala turned to terracotta bricks like earthy vessels that carry memory, landscape, and emotion. Painting, carving, and inscribing them, he transformed bricks into intimate sites of recollection. “I’m carrying the weight of memory, of my landscape, of where I come from. Terracotta bricks are not just a medium for me, they’re an emotional space. The material listens to me, absorbs my words. It’s like having a conversation,” he explained.
His journey with bricks began during his bachelor’s degree at Thrissur Fine Arts College in 2014, when he moved away from canvas and began painting directly on plastered walls at home, each brick a diary-like fragment of place and time. At Triloka, he exhibits 93 individual bricks, together forming an evolving narrative of humans and land, where identity is porous and the body merges with the landscape. Some resemble architectural elements, others quiet observations. “In a way,” he concluded, “these bricks are rooms — rooms that hold my stories, my place, and my emotions.”