For the Moment

She is part of the group exhibition titled “Digging Time”, where 12 artists have interpreted time through ceramics. Bhattacharya’s other work Wheels of Time displays a frog on a ceramic surface. “When I think of my childhood, I remember a huge house with a big garden and a pond, where lotus leaves stayed afloat in the water, in the company of a frog. As I look back now, the frog stands as a keeper of time, a living being, silently observing how time has gone past, like a sutradhaar,” says the 52-year-old.

Time serves as a lifeline to our everyday routine, and pottery becomes a chronological device. Gallery Director Anu Bajaj says, “Ceramics and pottery have an important role in archaeology for understanding the culture, technology and behaviour of people of the past.”

Highly influenced by cinema and comics, artist Shirley Bhatnagar, known for her distinct style of storytelling, uses everyday colloquial references of time in the Ouroboros Series — Endless Knot. Here, the words “I need more time and space” and “Let’s do it on my time” occupy space around the ancient symbol of Ouroboros, of a serpent eating its own tail, often referenced to time in Hindu mythology.

Artist Rakhee Kane’s Withdrawal I is a take on traditional shops selling herbs for rituals in small towns, where wooden drawers decorate the walls from floor to ceiling. The piece represents the continuous handling they are subjected to, which over time leave behind the imprints of a
million hands.

Curator Vineet Kacker says, “In our everyday lives, we have a linear line, where there is a past and a future, and somewhere in between, is the present. The past is memory and the future is imagination, which keeps the mind at work. The show is an exploration of that space, looking at what happens in our minds.”

The exhibition is on display till March 1, at F – 213/B, Old MB Road, Lado Sarai. Contact: 41602545