"Is there at the core of any narrative a mystery that cannot be elucidated?"

24 inch/ 61 cm diameter, 1.5 inch/ 3.8 cm thick
Handmade papier-mâché disc, Acrylic paint and UV Matte Varnish, 2023

A trunk of a Chhatri Tree (Umbrella tree) I found on banks of Nageen Lake, in Srinagar, its twists and turns making me reflect upon a saying of my friend the film-maker Jean-Pierre Gorin. It refers to his definition of narrative as the construction of detours required by storytelling to elucidate an unsolvable mystery. Thus narrative is generated by examining subject matter from a multiplicity of perspectives, each view exerting a force that prioritises one while jettisoning the other through displacement. Gorin points to these detours as being the organising principle behind storytelling that serve to multiply the subject rather than being reductive. He advocates for an open project, an accumulation of processes that are constantly defying a singular articulation.

For this work the craftsmen I work with filled in the outline with silver motifs on a grey background. I choose this palette as a means to play with optical imbalances - the silver changes in colour as one walks around the work, from a gleaming intensity to a dark opaque grey. I used the painted silver motifs as a ground upon which to draw the details of the root with my own brushwork.

This layering, of the craftsman's fine motif upon which my line, impressionistic, is added, adds texture to the work and a connection between different iconographies and therefore histories. Lastly, a decorative border was added to the work as an experiment as, after discussions in the karkhana, it was felt the it was needed and that we had never painted a border over the more narrative of the works till ten. A border was also created for the work Landscapes{s} which, along with this work, was made over the course of the time I spent working with the craftsmen in Hasan Abad during 2023.

The papier-mâché disc upon which the work is painted is prepared in the traditional way by craftsmen of the area. The rough papier-mâché surface is smoothened over with clay from the banks of the River Jhelum flowing nearby, following which delicate tissue papers are glued over it, creating a very absorptive surface to paint upon. The thickness the of the disc allows the work an object like presence.

Papier-mâché, a popular craft, was introduced to Kashmir by Sufi preachers from Central Asia and Iran, such as Mir Sayyid Ali Hamdani (1312-1385). They taught their believers craft techniques as a means for them to keep their hands busy and therefore closer to god. Thus, the craft of papier-mâché objects such as caskets and jewellery boxes decorated with finely painted motifs spread across Kashmir and this history adds to the medium's symbolic heft.