Jagannath Panda (b. 1970)

Acquired from Bodhi Art, November 2007

Wolverhampton, Initial Access, Passage to India, 15 March - 2 August 2008

Denmark, HEART Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Indian Highway, 22 February  - 28 September 2010

Jagannath Panda grew up in Orissa. Coming from a family of Brahmin priests, religion played an important role in his upbringing. He was greatly influenced by the ornate textile designs and patterns native to his home state. His move to the outskirts of Delhi opened his eyes to a dysfunctional and ever-changing society. Panda often includes insects, birds and animals in his work and their adapted behavioural patterns due to human intervention. His corpus makes the viewer acutely aware of the relationship between the natural and the urban world and how they must co-exist. The insects in Panda's paintings seem to be temporarily stepping into the picture frame and crawling out, migrating from one place to the next. This is evocative of the displacement that Panda and others have felt in moving from their rural origins to a metropolis.

This lovely triptych depicts a tree covered entirely in floral fabric, a brocade that is typical to the Orissan region where Panda was raised. Here Panda has a sensitive approach to color; the russet tones of the fabric beautifully contrasts with the subdued grey and blue hues of the sky and buildings in the background. The organic, swirling facets of the applied fabric is juxtaposed with the sharp clean lines of the edifices, drawing a further comparison between the natural and the man-made.