I Have Lost Me: Birds of Passage

April 23 – June 30, 2022

Sunanda Khajuria’s solo, I Have Lost Me: Birds of Passage, speaks to the notion of perpetual motion, transition, and eventual transformation, a concept deeply embedded in Chinese traditional painting and Taoist philosophy. Khajuria, who at the time was completing her Ph.D. at the Wuhan University of Technology in China, builds upon the concept of travel, that draws from her personal experiences when she visited various countries as part of her residencies, and which she explored extensively in her Moving Landscape series. In the current body of work, travel has morphed and matured into an exploration of migration, both local and global – a concept of particular relevance at the time, when the COVID pandemic had made many reassess how they travel and where they eventually want to settle. The majority of the works in this series were made during extended periods of lockdown while Khajuria was living in her hometown of Panthal in Jammu, India.

Khajuria employs a colourful, vibrant palette in her works, influenced by both an Indian and Chinese aesthetic and infused with an abundance of symbolism, with “elements or objects I have collected during my journey”, as she puts it. Flying birds, dragonflies, clouds, fish, water, mountains and shoes are just some of the recurrent imagery found in Khajuria’s painting, but each, carefully placed and orchestrated point back to the overall concept of a shift and transition from one state to another.

For the catalogue of this exhibition, please contact the gallery at ahg@artheritagegallery.com