OM SOORYA

Om Soorya’s tendency to integrate ‘other’ elements into his landscapes,

interfering with certain preconceptions and destroying the calm creates

a subtle blending of the real with the imaginary. He likes to play with the

boundaries of what is and what was perceived, referring to his landscapes

variously as inscapes, cityscapes, mindscapes or (self-deprecatingly)

memory -scapes.  These are the memories of his early experiences that

he retained, distilled them into their essential aspects, and they became

the visual and psychological engine for much of his work throughout. This

induces his to produce a dialectic image while critiquing modernity through

an act of memory and at the same time critiquing archaism through an act

of essentially modern invention, substitution , act of representation and

designification.

As the transition to the new continues, from archaic to modern, from modern

to post modern, these profound changes in consciousness bring with

them amnesias of specific historical circumstances, out of which develop

narratives, which simultaneously records a certain or apparent continuity

and emphasizes its loss from memory. From this narration which replaces

remembrance, comes identity, in changing conditions to provide security and

transcendental explanations of situations which certainly leads to recreation

of a narrative of ‘our own.’  This eventually nurtures a collective memory

and social cohesion through the representation of national narratives in

monumental forms, the construction and consecration of a symbolic

topography and the performance of identity through commemorative

activity.

Noopur Desai