“As an artist, I am interested in the way history operates through the minutiae of daily life and the way it permeates its spaces.”

The Guild Art Gallery presents ‘Reliquary’, Sathyanand Mohan’s solo show (April-May, 2009), comprising his recent works. The artist is intrigued by Jurgen Habermas’ formulation about the ‘incomplete project of Modernity’ that seems to him particularly apt with regard to our nation poised to be an economic superpower, yet more often than not unable to give the vast majority of its citizenry the economic, political and social stabilities that the ‘passage through Modernity’ is expected to guarantee.

The contradictions that constitute the fault lines of our society are a further consideration, insinuating itself into his works. Here is what Sathyanand Mohan has to say about himself, his art and the new series of work:

“My art education took place at the two key centers of the ‘narrative- figurative’ revival in contemporary Indian art - in Trivandrum, where I completed my graduation, and then in Baroda, where I completed my Masters. The two places can be said to have greatly impacted my work. Each brought with it its own specificities to my evolving conceptions of art and its formal practice.

“Although on a decline the influence of the ‘Radical’ movement, a far-left artists collective, was still keenly felt by me at Trivandrum. They foregrounded an interventionist praxis that drew in equal measure from the various revolutionary political movements in Kerala at the time as well as the European avant-garde.

“My relocation to Baroda tossed me into the midst of a waning cultural ferment, engaged in the task of articulating (for a decade or so), through a narrative language, which drew upon a variety of sources - a type of Indian Modernism, having the visual and conceptual apparatus to address local as well as global concerns without becoming yet another exotic commodity in the burgeoning world-market of ideas. From these encounters with different trajectories and approaches to art making, I’ve tried to evolve a visual language marked by the critical dialogue with tradition, which constitutes a historically grounded practice.