What we call history is simply a narration of an event. But have you ever thought where it has disappeared. I believe it exists. History has power of unmaking itself time and again in different contexts,” says Josh PS, a Delhi-based artist on the launch of his new show in the capital city.
Titled, Miscellaneous and the Mute, the exhibition takes the viewer across the past. With several dots and lines paintings, the artist speaks on exploitation and resistance, of non-violence and bondage and the righteous desire for freedom. In his solo show, every dot and line is the carrier of information where every stroke is as unique and un-identical to the one before.
The artist is fascinated with the space, time and history. He says, “By studying the marks of pencil that you created so long ago, you get transported back to that distant moment. You get to be there again. As an artist, I create to capture and preserve a memory,” adding, “Two different people describe the same event in two different ways because they have different memories of it. That’s why we have history which is controversial as when the time passes, memory loses its sharpness.”
The artist feels that when we think of the great wars, conquests, legends and majestic men and women, often one fails to realise that every tiny undocumented act of human and nature is interwoven into the fabric that led to this moment in time. He says that where everything in the universe is a manifestation of energy, “which bypasses the concept of repetitive creation and destruction we can assume that all that ever has or ever will be, already exists in some insubstantial form. From childhood to adolescence, from the spark of inspiration in an artist to the final stroke of a painting, every physical, emotional, mental and spiritual instinct is forever reverberated into the universal consciousness of God. Nothing is lost in nature.”
Josh also talks about the present times in India. According to him, “I wish and urge that nothing should happen in present which would leave dark in our future. But each protests happens around us is out of an anxiety of future on behalf of present.
Till: February 29
At: Gallery 1000 A, Lado Sarai