Jagannath Panda
Dancers of the Celestial Realms, 2024-2025
Acrylic, fabric, pigment, glue on canvas
78h x 108w in
Derived from enduring personal experiences, Jagannath Panda’s solo exhibition ‘Thresholds of the Elsewhere’ is a transcendent meditation on material and memory. It contemplates deeply what lies within and beyond the realm of human perception. The artist’s philosophical inquiries into corporeal and metaphysical aspects result in a compelling body of work which nudge us to reflect on how we choose to navigate in an ever-changing world. Bhagavad Gita, the ancient Hindu philosophical text, posits that the body goes through the cycle of birth, ageing and death. The mind is the repository of thoughts and emotions, and serves as the conduit for our experiences while changing with time. However, it is the atman (our true ‘self’ and pure consciousness), which is eternal, unchanging and the actual witness to the passage of time. Consequently, the key to realization of true wisdom lies in understanding the illusory non-duality of time and timelessness. The artist distills that supposition to explore the play of contradictions and harmonies in his richly layered and symbolic works in the exhibition.
Jagannath Panda
Echoes of the Microcosm III, 2024
Acrylic, fabric, pigment, glue on canvas
72h x 72w in
For him, conceptually, the threshold is not a self-limiting boundary. Rather, it is a portal that opens avenues to new realms and possibilities. It is an invocation to radically reimagine how we think, how we feel, and how we could alter the edges of our understanding of time through our life choices. Likewise, ‘elsewhere’ does not imply a fixed, final or pre-determined destination. Instead, it alludes to liminal spaces — between the real and the imagined, the ritual and the spiritual, the ecological and the ecocidal — wherein humanity can exercise free will to achieve greater harmony and equanimity. The hypothesis implicit in these assertions is that exploring such dimensions could create spaces for our philosophical enquiry and spiritual transformation. The artist, who comes from a long lineage of Hindu priests in Eastern India, was influenced by the prayer rituals and use of sacred geometry he observed at home while growing up. Meticulously prescribed forms like yantras and mandalas have been used by both Hindu and Buddhist priests since millennia for specific purposes like invoking spirits and purifying spaces. Panda’s approach, while empirically derived therefrom, is not rigidly rooted to it. Instead, it is intuitive and spontaneous in its approach and outcomes, while engaging with salient issues like human dislocation and environmental sustainability. Traces of tantric geometry prominently feature in many of the works. The circular shapes of multiple paintings as well as the recurring presence of the bindu (dot) the primordial void symbolizing the source of all creation, are both examples of this geometry. Through these forms, the artist explores the cyclicity of time itself, holding within it the tension between the temptation of material desires and the opposing pull evoked by spiritual detachment. Panda’s paintings and collages reflect the multifaceted fabric of our daily lives, while his symbols and motifs remain open to new meanings which go beyond their quotidian significance.
Jagannath Panda
Echoes of the Microcosm II, 2025
Acrylic, fabric, pigment, glue on canvas, wood
76h x 76w in
The current body of work emerges from more than three decades of Panda’s engagement with religion, spirituality and tradition in a contemporary context. It reflects the evolution of a visual language which weaves together abstraction and figuration, geometry and fractal logic; animist traditions and totemic elements, and cosmological correlations. Through this intriguing and layered imagery, the artist explores how construction, labor, and memory are inextricably intertwined with each other. In certain works, he goes beyond the formal iconographies of organized religions and finds inspiration in the hyperlocal grama devatas (village deities). These folkloric protector spirits whose divine interventions have been tailored to their local communities are now disappearing in the face of urbanization and homogenizing forces.
Panda’s material choices have always been diverse and eclectic. In this exhibition, they incorporate industrial items like plywood and artisanal material like papier-mâché, along with fabrics and a range of pigments; as well as day-to-day objects like wall calendars, jewelry, and toy parts. While seemingly ordinary at first glance, they are actually imbued with profound stories of their own. Not merely meant to be decorative, they carry residues of fragility and resilience. As part of structures that have been constructed and dismantled, they have become telling reminders of what we hold dear and what we are willing to let go of. Ultimately, through these hybrid amalgamations, which synthesize elements of painting, sculpture and collage, the artist creates an architecture of our formative memories, nurtured feelings and imagined futures.
-Anindo Sen
Anindo Sen is an independent writer, researcher and curator focused on South Asian artistic practices and ecosystems. His writing has been published in Hyperallergic, The Art Newspaper, ARTnews, Artnet, ART India, Mint and the Critical Collective.
Artist talk between Jagannath Panda and Corrine Erni, Chief Curator, Parrish Art Museum, on September 13, 2025, 6 pm.