Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna of Palette Art Gallery hosted a preview evening for Where The Sky Remembers, a solo exhibition of recent works by Ashish Kushwaha.
The exhibition presents a body of paintings in watercolour on paper and acrylic on canvas, foregrounding Kushwaha’s sustained engagement with the landscape as a site of memory, ecological reflection, and quiet resistance.
Born in Chhattisgarh into a family of farmers, Kushwaha’s early life was shaped by an intimate relationship with the land. His compositions are marked by sweeping vistas—fields stretching into distant horizons, mountain ranges rendered with quiet monumentality, and water bodies that anchor the viewer in a contemplative space. Above these terrains, expansive skies unfold in moments of dusk or nocturnal stillness, often illuminated by constellations that evoke both wonder and solitude.
Yet these landscapes are far from passive. The works reflect on the accelerated urbanisation of contemporary life and the ongoing exploitation of natural resources. While human figures are largely absent, their presence is subtly implied through traces such as a solitary hut, clusters of houses, a lone boat, or a vehicle moving across the terrain. These elements appear at a diminished scale, underscoring both the vastness of nature and the fragility of human intervention.
Animals frequently inhabit his compositions, not as secondary motifs but as co-inhabitants of shared ecosystems, reinforcing the interconnectedness of life.
Speaking on the occasion, Rohit Gandhi noted that for Kushwaha, painting becomes a means of processing the anxieties of the present moment. In the face of ecological precarity and socio-political unrest, his works emerge as spaces of reflection and catharsis—holding together stillness and tension, and inviting viewers into landscapes that are both expansive and introspective.
Ashish Kushwaha shared that the rituals of village life left an indelible mark on his artistic sensibilities, particularly the tradition of adorning walls with paintings of peacocks and Hanuman ji. These vibrant and symbolic murals became his earliest source of inspiration. “As a child, I would return from school and sketch on the walls of my home with pieces of charcoal,” he recalled.
The preview evening was well attended by members of the art and cultural fraternity, including Chetan Seth, Leena Singh, Sanjay Passi, Aman Nath, Vasundhra Tiwari, and artist Neerja Peters, among many other art enthusiasts.
