Remembrance
Client:
Year:
Acrylic and gold leaf on Raw linen
130 X 92 cm
2024
This work reflects the layered emotions of growing up in the limestone mining village of Kamrao, Himachal Pradesh, alongside my childhood friend, Dinesh Bahadur, a Nepali migrant like myself. Our parents toiled as laborers under harsh, extractive conditions, and as we grew older, the weight of survival and family responsibilities pulled us onto separate paths.
Through this piece, I trace the tenderness of our bond and the ache of parting-what I call the "bittersweet joy of separation," a feeling rooted in the rhythms of displacement and impermanence that define many of our lives.
The work also speaks to the environmental degradation we witnessed firsthand: mining disrupted water sources, fractured ecosystems, and reshaped our daily reality. In telling this story, I reflect on the entangled struggles of race, labor, and land-struggles that echo far beyond my small village.