​​​​PRAGYA BHARGAVA

A Eulogy to Things That Never Were 

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A Eulogy to Things That Never Were was made for a group show with three other artists. The show was in incubation for nearly seven years and eventually coalesced as a collection of fragmented narratives firmly rooted in a shared longing for things that may or may not have existed. In many ways the works are an acknowledgement of lapses in memory and the desire to fill those gaps consciously or unconsciously with fictional fragments.They respond to the times we live in, made up by endless layers of human activity and geotic flux. As we negotiate these transforming layers we find ourselves trying to hold on to traces of the past, both material and immaterial. Particularly, the series is an instinctive response to flooding in the Himalayan Mountain range in India, and an exploration of how this point in history affects remembering and recalling of memories associated with this landscape.

In the paintings and the prints, familiar natural landscapes are taken apart and then reassembled. The imperfection is subtle yet persistent to indicate the changes that have transpired. Like all things broken and mended these landscapes too contain traces of the process. The result is a representation of a world between the real and the imagined, a dichotomy intended to draw comparisons between what is true and what is fictional.

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