Bharatesh GD’s solo show in Bengaluru cuts through layers of pain

Bengaluru-based artist Bharathesh GD talks about his solo show Pain Corporation of India

A jaw full of teeth protruding from difficult angles, chopped fingers marked with voting ink, skewered tongues, and eyeballs at unexpected corners, filled with disdain and disapproval, constantly watching.

That is what you encounter at Pain Corporation of India, a solo show by Bengaluru-based Bharatesh GD. However, the artist’s work is not a display of the macabre but goes beyond a physical interpretation of pain to depict, “how belief is engineered, pain normalised and dissent managed”.

The unusual theme has been executed on an atypical medium as well — polythene sheets and plywood. According to Bharatesh, the material used should have its own meaning. “A surface needs to have character and a polythene sheet has a three dimensionality; it comes with possibilities as well as limitations.”

“These works have a sensorial and visual component that lends itself to polythene. I knew early on this medium had a capacity to handle this sort of imagery, gory and morbid as it was,” says Bharathesh, adding that the ideation of these works, created over the past five years, has been simmering for the better part of a decade.

“They stem from anger — anger at the historical, economical, political and behavioral changes we see in society. As a social animal, these things affect me.”

Bharathesh GD | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement