A migrant, global traveller and an artist shaped by the cosmopolitanism of Mumbai, Naresh Kumar’s journeys echo the voice of a migrant in an increasingly volatile world of republics
Bombay Rituals, set of 448 paintings/drawings installed together, 2022-2025. Pics Courtesy/Chemould Prescott Road Gallery
One of my favourite places in the city is Sassoon Docks. I can sit there and watch the ships for hours,” admits Naresh Kumar, as we speak over the phone. Coincidentally, the conversation takes place while this writer is passing through Bandra’s Bandstand promenade. The sea is a constant presence for any Mumbaikar — homegrown or migrant. These unifying identities and exploration of individual freedoms in a fractured world are key to his first solo exhibition, Act of Republic that opens in a Fort gallery tomorrow.
Resistance in a Republic
Kumar has returned from a residency in South Korea recently. “Even there, I witnessed protests against immigration, and inhuman laws,” he shares, underlining the global nature of the issue. His works are a ‘personal resistance’ to this growing battle.
(From left) Mother tongue-(I); Protester (I) from Naresh Kumar’s body of work
Born in a family of low-income farmers in Bihar, Kumar is the only one among his six siblings to move away. Education at the Patna Arts College, and a fellowship at the Ecole Nationale Superiere des Beaux-Arts de Paris allowed him to do so. “I was lucky to find my way out through education. The purpose of my work, therefore, is to express the ideas of an individual who has migrated and survived,” he elaborates. Migration, he points out, is after all a very human trait.
City of migrants
It is no surprise that Mumbai finds a way into the conversation. Kumar first arrived in the city back in 2014, after a stint in Paris. “I was invited to show here, and was based in Colaba. I found the city very similar to Paris, with its cafés for artists and authors to mingle. I knew I wanted to build a studio here [in Colaba], and did a few years later near Ballard Estate,” he recalls. Now based in Delhi, he still finds himself travelling in and out of the city through the year.
Residue of the Future (II), 2022-2025
This intermingling of identities, past and present, is further reflected in the choice of his canvas — leafs of The Yellow Pages. “I read that the world is turning into a database. Those who own the data will own the world. What about the data of the past? You walk around Colaba, and it is left in the roads, the buildings and the motifs on the architecture. I was seeking tactile reminders of the old cosmopolitanism,” he shares. The telephone directory was a space where everything in the city came together, inclusive of their individual identities.
Naresh Kumar
The 27 works are divided into five rooms across the gallery, each addressing a theme. Each work captures a distinct feature of identity that is a raging battleground across the world today. Referring to one in particular, Mother tongue, he says, “It was actually picked up by Shireen Gandhy [director, Chemould Prescott Road] who suggested it was the soul of the entire body of work. It is an expression of images that find a home in stories told by mothers across the world,” he says. A closer look at the patterns will reveal animals from kauwa (crow) to khargosh (rabbit) in the works. In a time when linguistic divides are deepening faultlines, especially in the city, it reflects on the common visual language that shapes our first perception of the world.
Identity in art
For Kumar, it boils down to the individual and his place in the Republic. “The individual republic is born within every individual. There is a lot of complexity to the individual human being, especially when placed within the larger system,” he concludes. It certainly resonates in the context of this week.
FROM July 10 to August 28; 10 am to 6 pm (Monday to Saturday)
AT Chemould Prescott Road, Queens Mansion, G Talwatkar Marg, Fort.
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