As the Moon Passes by23 Aug – 4 Sept 2019
CURATOR’S Note
What are we, but a coherent superimposition of the fleeting moments lost and the evanescent experiences lived in a totality? The most unforgettable of all moments is ‘now’, just as memorable as the ‘then’; and it is from the epochal plains of these souvenirs of time, ‘As the moon passes by’ elicits its aesthetic voice. An apotheosis of the moments she treasures, it is a candid narrative of the ethereal, almost dreamlike, world-building of a compulsive diarist/documentarian.
Impassioned by the beautiful dichotomy of life, perpetual yet transient, Sanyaa intrinsically architects her expressions with the singular dialect of photographs. Her artworks are lyrical permutations of palpable instants, the quiet blinks of the eye, heartbeats skipped and breaths taken away. Each artwork pieces together a part of her, once lost in a daydream, caught in the surreptitious comfort of chaos. Her visual diction, a conflux of mercurial memories and eclectic intimacy, makes every single montage come alive with an unequivocal life force of its own.
This exhibition is an arresting reflection of ‘her reality’, an illation of the confluence of days and daydreams, an honest self-portrait most intimate. It is an invitation for the onlookers to experience how there’s more to what we see, there’s more to what we feel, there’s more to what we do, there’s more to who we are.
Pragya Saxena
Artist Statement
*As the moon passes by* comes from my childhood fascination with the sky. For the longest time, I used to believe that the moon follows me home to make sure I am safe. A part of me holds on to this belief as I look up to the sky to gaze at the moon every night and watch it run parallel to me, watch it stop when I do. Acting as a constant reminder of how tiny we are, of how much more there is to this world and how little we are exposed to, the moon is regular, yet phenomenal – its close enough for me to know of its presence but never enough to satiate my curiosity. The moon for me is symbolic of my life making up my everyday as it passes, tying up all the elements I am fascinated with. It is constant, yet it changes. It is predictable yet not. The same everyday but never the same still, it manifests in different ways. There is so much around us to absorb but so less that we can focus on. A nostalgic amalgamation of stories, narratives and memories through the photographic documentation of my daily life, the moon passing by day in and day out, has seen it all.
Sanyaa Mehrotra
