Texts: Shankar Tripathi, Schӧn Mendes
Foreword: Mamta Singhania
Publication Design: Reha Sodhi
"The restless throbbings and burnings
That hope unsatisfied brings,
The weary longings and yearnings
For the mystical better things,
Are the sands on which is reflected
The pitiless moving lake,
Where the wanderer falls dejected,
By a thirst he never can slake."
Adam Lindsay Gordon, Wormwood and Nightshade.
Abhishek Narayan Verma's earnest and unflagging quest to forge his visual language through multiple explorations such as printmaking, paintings, and hand-bleached photographic prints has long been a source of wonder to me. This many-splendoured visual feast resonates with a resplendent orchestra - whose confluence results in an ethereal performance. The decadent and luxurious interiors depicted in the paintings appear comfortingly welcoming, and simultaneously strangely jarring. As a viewer, one is drawn into this theatrical and seemingly simple world of grandeur, only to realize the web of distortions on closer observations. It is on this stage that the protagonist emerges; an actor playing their part. Perhaps it is this duality in these works that makes them linger in the mind's eye with a strange reverberance.
(excerpt from the catalogue essay, A Many-Splendoured Visual Feast, by Schӧn Mendes)