Change is inevitable, and most of the time, unpredictable and unconforming. It is the one factor that may problem the established order, and allow transformation. In his newest exhibit titled Metamorphosis, Phaneendra Nath Chaturvedi, 44, holds on to this concept of change and celebrates it via 59 items of rigorously composed artworks.
“For the last 25 years, my art has explored themes of self, duality, and transformation,” he says. “As an artist, I’ve always been drawn to the blurry line between human and non-human, real and unreal, natural and artificial. These tensions show up in my human-like figures — creatures stuck between species, genders, eras, and feelings.”
Phaneendra Nath Chaturvedi
With his childhood and adolescence spent in Banaras, Chaturvedi’s physique of labor closely attracts inspiration from the outdated metropolis of temples. A spot that in its capability of life and demise, in on a regular basis moments of rituals, symbols, and myths, has formed his creative bearing.
“Varanasi does not exist on a map; it breathes, decays, regenerates, and transcends. It is a living paradox — timeless and contemporary, sacred and nonreligious, private and harrowing. These contradictions have definitely affected me. The images that made up daily life in Varanasi were monkeys swaying on crumbling balconies, the fragrance of marigolds, chanting of mantras, smoke overhead as funeral pyres were lit. All of these negated the temporal and metaphysical, and my early exposure taught me to look beyond the surface of things, to see beauty in decay, and to imagine story in silence. That intuition still informs how I create compositional landscapes and characters.”
The Flyer
Speaking via the butterfly
Through paper, wooden, stainless-steel, fibreglass and larger-than-life canvasses, Metamorphosis explores how we deal with inside shifts in a world that’s at all times altering. It’s like a image diary exhibiting perseverance, self-reflection, and private progress.
A stand-out image in Chaturvedi’s works is the butterfly, an omnipresent component that serves as a signifier and a tenuously-balanced witness of transformation. It speaks a nice deal about a number of themes the visible artist likes to work with: fleetingness, renewal, magnificence born of wrestle, and the delicate interaction between vulnerability and energy.
The Good Wisher
“In many cultures, butterflies are seen as the souls, messengers, or metonymic symbols for transcendence. For me, they have become a metaphor for the human condition. When I portray butterflies in stainless steel sculptures, their iridescence acts as a metaphor for fragility and resilience [against] the artificiality of the industrialised world. And in my paper works, they appear in ambiguous situations, serving as witnesses to change.”
Metamorphosis at Bikaner House
The Last Supper
No Kafkaesque inspiration
At a time when the artwork world is below a lot of scrutiny, due to the Anita Dube-Aamir Aziz controversy — involving the utilization of the latter’s poem with out due credit score or consent — Chaturvedi’s exhibit seems intently paying homage to Prague-born German Franz Kafka’s seminal novella in each title and nature. “If my work has anything in common with Kafka’s ideas, it’s by chance, not on purpose,” he shares. “My art comes from a whole different background, rooted in my own life story. So, while Kafka wrestles with alienation, absurdity, and psychological transformation in the context of Europe, I engage in similar ruminations through the lens of Banaras, and the mythological, ritualised and everyday life in India.”
At Bikaner House
The Metaphor
Metamorphosis, curated by Sanya Malik, is on view until in the present day at Bikaner House, and until May 30 on the Black Cube Gallery in Hauz Khas.
The unbiased author is Delhi-based.
Published – May 08, 2025 12:59 pm IST
