GIPIN VARGHESE | Commonly Caught Species: D-53 Defence Colony, New Delhi

8 April - 10 May 2017

Gipin is concerned with the human condition and paints in this series about jails, invasions, wiping out of animals and indigenous communities from their natural habitats by power in a series of delicate watercolors. In that sense, His works also explore how we impose human systems and institutions on the plant and animal world by controlling the way they are created and raised. Looking at these instances, Gipin poses an existential question and a philosophical predicament where he sees patterns emerging in human activities. He chronicles as an observer from a distance and thinks of the multitudes of violence in history both in parts and on a whole. Gipin takes inspiration from Indian folk mural traditions to depict these ideas which are based on actual events – such as the Indian government supporting the use of the poisonous pesticide Endosulphan owing to pressure from its manufactures, human rights violations using Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) in Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir, farmer suicides in Andhra Pradesh etc.