In Death Is Nothing But Love, in Hyderabad, Arpan Sadhukhan treats his work as resistance against the distortions of power

Art has long functioned as both a mirror and resistance — reflecting the anxieties of its time while challenging what shapes them. In moments of political upheaval and aggressive consumer expansion, artists often become unofficial archivists, preserving truths that risk being rewritten. For Arpan Sadhukhan, a contemporary printmaker from Bengal, whose solo exhibition Death Is Nothing But Love draws its title from a poem by Nabarun Bhattacharya, art is documentation — a safeguard against historical distortion. “Whenever whoever comes to power, they start destroying the existing history and reinterpreting it for their own reasons,” Arpan says.

Consumerism and self death is at the center of the exhibition by Arpan Sadhukhan

“I find art is a very interesting tool to document the history and make an alternative narration of the time…Later, when history is misinterpreted, it can guide you to the truth.” Originally, he considered naming the exhibition after Nabarun’s poem This Dead Valley Is Not My Land, but found the title too direct. Instead, Arpan chose a subtler line from its English translation: “I know death is nothing but love.” The ambiguity better reflects the layered, unsettling quality of his imagery — grotesque figures, dense symbolism, and recurring smiley motifs that critique consumer culture’s seductive surface.

Trained in printmaking, Arpan works primarily with woodcut but resists strict adherence to tradition. “Medium is a tool only,” he explains. “It’s not about woodcut or sculpture, it’s about how I can express myself.” Carving wood, he says, is an act of excavation. “When you are carving the wood, it’s like a self-discovery.” The physicality of the process mirrors his thematic concerns — identity eroded under the weight of commodification.

Arpan’s visual language is influenced by 19th-century Calcutta woodcuts, early examples of Indian modernity that satirised social scandals and daily life rather than mythology. He cites the infamous tale of Nobin Chandra and Elokeshi retold through popular prints as an example of how art once blended humour, politics, and critique. That spirit of satire informs his own practice.

Central to the exhibition is the mythology of Vishnu and the churning of the ocean, or Samudra Manthan, in which gods and demons churn the sea to obtain nectar. In Arpan’s reinterpretation, however, “they are getting nothing out of it.” The endless pulling yields emptiness, a metaphor for modern consumption. “If you are buying a brand, the brand is not becoming your identity. You are becoming that brand’s identity. That is a self-death — but we are loving it.”

Despite the urgency of his themes — environmental destruction, commodified protest — he resists framing the artist as a saviour. “Art is not going to change anything,” Arpan says. “But if it exists 100 years after your death, the true history can be rediscovered through your works.”

Free entry. On view till March 30, 11 am to 7 pm. At Srishti Art Gallery, Jubilee Hills.

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