Jailed Shadows

Jailed Shadows – lockdown exhibition 

 

"Only creatures that are as flawed and ignorant as humans can be free in the way humans are free. We do not know how matter came to dream our world into being; we do not know what, if anything, comes when the dream ends for us and we die". John Gray

 

This exhibition explores yet another fall in the twentieth century that unfolded in images and thoughts, in form, textures, tone and titles, that seem to touch and reflect upon our immediate experience of the world in the time of Corona.

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This exhibition unfolded as a negotiation with the rapidly changing world during the pandemic.

The world is at a crossroads, once again, where informed choices need to be made, not in a linear fashion…. but in circles…

…around the jailed shadows of humanity in a developing world order with lockdown restrictions, social isolation, gender confusion, livelihoods destroyed or compromised, a puzzling phenomenon of former racial divides being accentuated - the destruction of individual freedom and autonomy.

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We are forced to carefully consider the "mutational leaps" manifested in the creation of masked personas, which refers to creating a new social identity, where one is simply acting a role through which the collective psyche speaks. (Masked women marching)

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The following archetypal images of the persona explore different aspects of the loss of individualism – the Harlequin, the Marionette, and the Joker.

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Could they have mutated into these personas in a potentially more-than-human world? Is it probable that they are imbibing primal truths with lies and new social rules, like vaccination laws, that seem believable?

 

"The more a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate

those who speak it". George Orwell

 

"All will be erased from existence in this age,

Except the one

Who is established in his ways

And firm in his thoughts". Allama Iqbal -