The Future Is Not Fixed: Riyas Komu to unveil two new oils on canvas at Vadehra Gallery

New Delhi: Riyas Komu, the critically acclaimed multimedia artist, curator and sculptor, is well-known for his work in reviving art education and developing art infrastructure in India.

His body of work is a part of the broader narrative of construction and dismantling of the artistic influences of the society we live in.

Tragic Day Optimist - 2020 and Rhizomic Image are two of the most recent artworks done by Riyas.

Now, he is all set to showcase them at Vadhera Art Gallery's online project titled The Future Is Not Fixed.

Now, he is all set to showcase the two works at the reopening of Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, in the project titled, The Future Is Not Fixed.

Here are a couple of concept notes from Riya Komu himself, about the two works of art that he will be showcasing -

Tragic Day Optimist (2020)
3x4 ft, oil on canvas 
This portrait*, as it came to me in a flash, is unlike many other portraits which I have worked on in the past. 

Withdrawn from the world as if outside the scale of humanity, this face draws towards itself, towards that centre of thought which lays in abeyance, and in forgetfulness of one's own memory. 

The origin and the destination of the world meets in one gesture - this anonymous force of life, it's appearance, and disappearance, before which we humans would perhaps need another eye or altogether other thought. 

Certain images work on our psyche as a catastrophe of sorts that slowly calms our thought and invites us in its centre, where we all are. 

*This portrait is drawn from an image taken from the daily traffic of images one sees on the internet.

Rhizomic Image (2020)
2x2 ft oil on canvas 

Working with (the subject of) Gandhi is not just a vocation for me, it involves all the precepts of memory; cohabitation with figures of action, thought, and contemplation which goes back to my childhood experiences of coming to terms with the symbolic imageries associated with the idea of a nation. 

I have been living with this figure of action for long through my works. Each time I approach the medium of work with a figure like Gandhi, time opens up with its own contradictions and layers of anxiety. 

In the now time of history, working with Gandhi in particular, as it is intertwined with my own autobiographical time - of experiencing the nature of the present crisis, where the concept of life is being systematically dissociated with the concept of democracy; and especially the present, which concerns us with so many discomforts of being thrown out by the hands of regimes. 

This figure opens up a zone of pastoral time, where I merge my studio space with that of the scale of ashram life, a life spent in contemplation. With the figure of Gandhi, I conceive the dangers and limits of surveillance and regimes of control in the era of viral exception. 

A cramped-up representation of the figures of thought like Gandhi offers me a tool to rework my memory along the smothered axes of time.