Artist reimagines nature in aftermath of urban development

A peacock tries to accustom itself with its new surroundings as bricks are topped up to raise walls. A rhinoceros walks on the pavement flanked by the city skyline in the backdrop.
Artist Ashish Kushwaha's paintings hold a mirror to human kind which, in its quest for development, is gradually rendering the birds and animals homeless.
Kushwaha, an environmentalist at heart, has been exposing the workings of urban development over the past five years through his works.
A collection of his paintings, which seek to draw public attention to the scant human regard for ecological rhythms, will be on display as part of an upcoming exhibition, "Inheritance of Loss".

In a series of art on canvas and a few works of water colours, he looks at the loss of habitat for animals and birds in the face of vanishing forests and large scale development without a thought for species who are facing the reality of no place to exist.
"My paintings are silent conversations. I believe that art must communicate. It must tell a story and it must have a message. I am always thinking of 'prakriti' (nature), of the earth as a planet, in which there is harmony between animals and man.

"But what I see is very different and very difficult for me. Animals and birds and man-we're two halves of a whole. Sometimes I feel at the rate at which we are moving we certainly won't last forever," says the Mumbai-based artist.

According to Uma Nair, who has curated the show, Kushwaha's works compel the viewers to stop and think about the present day human habits and their consequences on the environment.
"He unravels urban metaphors revealing a crafty greediness, a superficial artifice and the harsh truths of man versus nature, in a world that has forgotten the adage 'for the beauty of the earth'.
"While the works give us an urban overview of a landscape, these are not pretty in the least. They reflect the cruelty of large scale rampant deforestation and the race to develop grasslands into skyscrapers that banish wildlife species," says Nair.

The artworks will be up on display at India International Centre between May 19 and May 29.