A salty pain is an empathic act of speaking about the eradication of the salt pans for real estate projects or resort construction in West Mauritius and consequently, the lives of the field workers turned upside down. A salty pain has an anti-Capitalism flavor and takes on a Marxist approach. Interestingly, ways of seeing differed when placed in a foreign location. Indians related it to Gandhi’s Salt March. The labor theory of value, dialectical materialism, class struggle and dictatorship of the proletariat are therein incorporated. A Duchampian style of inclusion of ready-mades where an ordinary article of life is placed so that its useful significance disappears under the new title and point of view, create a new thought for the object. The artist-as-maker is moved to the artist-as-chooser. We are victims of our progress. Everything comes with a price.


A salty pain -1

The economy is running on gaslighting. After panic-buying, the mass is being manipulated by an increase in e-adverts. Alas, like the rat which runs towards the piece of stale bread in the trap, we are being easily convinced to spend. I have been a prey. Post panic-buying, as the world begins to “open back up”, billions will be spent on advertising and media content to make people feel comfortable again. Polish speakers would talk about making water out of someone’s brain. We are now vulnerable in a whole new way to becoming victims of mindless consumerism.  


Quarantine Diaries– Gaslighting

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine and reset our world. Now is the time for a refresh- for an economic reconstruction with a Marxist approach towards equity, self-sufficiency and sustainability. The time for cynicism is a little behind us.


Quarantine Diaries– Economic reconstruction

Mauritius has seen its biggest anti-Governmental protests in years 2020 and 2021 immediately after the first wave of Covid-19 and the wreckage of the Japanese ship, “Wakashio” in its South-East lagoon which had caused immense environmental and economic harm. While corruption, injustice and lack of meritocracy were always present, it needed that one drop to cause an overflow and push the Middle Class Man to come out.  The clown and the joker as iconographies creep in my later artworks to whisper protest, making a historical reference to the Neo Nazi Rally, the Anti Nazi Clowning, the Sieg Heil and the less far Middle East protest when people disguised as "The Joker" walked down the roads, empathizing with the character in the movie itself. Any of the Common Man protests has always been about condemning a form of injustice or corruption and the disguise as Joker or Clown makes an underground statement that ‘we are not as smiling and happy as we appear to be’. The pigs hanged upside down reminds one of the butcher’s shop where dead animals are hanged or even industrial production of meat where structures hold the animals upside down. The pig, a political metaphor in my artworks, and this time upside down, suggests a revolution. Common men should not be taken for granted. For, if they can get ‘a pig’ elected, they can also bring it down. 


Game of thrones –6

The Happiness Paradox: What makes you happy, makes you unhappy. It is unusual that a person  says, “Sign me up for some suffering.” Whatever one does, is it not for one’s happiness ultimately?  Yet, Man cuts down trees for the happiness of luxury, yet finds His home swept away by floods. Man eats lavishly for the happiness of taste, yet ends up unhappy on the hospital bed with health complications. The feature of goal pursuit may lead to paradoxical effects. So it has been with an unprecedented global pandemic where the Powerful turned out to be powerless. To Buddhists, existence is a cycle of life, death, rebirth and suffering that they seek to escape altogether which they represents through the Bhavachakra, the Wheel of Life or Wheel of Becoming. This painting combines the Buddhist Wheel of Becoming with the Happiness Paradox, thus creating a new Wheel of Life. 


Quarantine Diaries– The Happiness Paradox

Towing a cocktail of socioeconomic shivers and fluttering health with an entire world on the play-pause button, COVID-19 has thrown a challenge to daily life. A reverse migration is strangely resonating with an urgent future- a return to the Victory Garden walking with the incitement for invention and innovation. Is the final leg of the pandemic marathon being run?

Quarantine Diaries- Resonance

Everything comes with a price! Bleeding shores 2, concentrating on the southern Mauritius scenario– my home- speaks about the privatization of public beaches as and when resorts are planted with residents turned paying guests. Seen from far, there are two simultaneous scenes- one is of nice blue water with children strolling on the shore and the other is a construction going on the shore. While the work mainly refers to the ‘Rane nu nu la plaz’ protest, it is also a personal story of becoming a guest on my own land. It refers to childhood memories of then and construction of now. While it has an emotional quotient with the inhabitants deprived access to the sand and water they spent their whole life on, it brings the pertinent issue of post colonization. Remains of a so-called annihilated colonization are very well present. 


Add

AVILLA DAMAR

Opportunities

For Artists

ArtConnect

Support