Anant Joshi invents a circus of the past: forms that populate his work act out stories of political upheaval and social turmoil in the country. He plunges us into this troubled world with the satire of a semi-cartoonist, semi-toymaker, and artist.

Inhabiting multi-coloured interiors and boxed in by the edges of the canvas, Joshi’s figures reference found photographs, newspaper clippings and cartoons. His protagonists appear faceless, ghoul-like creatures, that dissolve into their psychedelic surroundings. The artist is reluctant to entirely reveal its intricacies repeatedly veiling his work using techniques of masking and camouflage that often divert the viewer.

He creates a surface alive with webs, intersected networks, and hidden beams of incredible colour, only to be disrupted by black dematerialised forms in their very centre; shifting our focus from the primary subject. Yet, a multitude of figures emerge from the layers, where forms forge to reveal themselves.

Tactical distractions, misinformation, and political strategies are natural subjects to him, and come to the fore again. Here a sense of history and longing is seen through the contemporary gaze.

What constitutes the main part of the exhibition are 9 large canvas paintings.

What is mind-boggling about these works is the amount of labor that goes into their making. What lies below the visible surface is a painterly, colourful rendering of images, which are then painted upon with large (unrecognisable) blobs or gauche patterns that are an attempt to mask newspaper photographs. These resemble mirror landscapes where the entire painting is then layered upon with shiny gift-wrapping paper. The under colour is completely obliterated! While these blobs may be read as “blindspots”, titles often reveal what these images could be. These large abstract forms come from Klecksography* patterns that deter the viewer from direct interpretations.

We are live in very particular times where censorship demands a very specific response. What the artist attempts to convey through the blips and beeps from media and the state that could amount to muting speakers or masking events with patches, turn into jokes, memes and images of resistance. No matter how many obstacles we may encounter, the only thing we have to avoid is a failure of will.

*Klecksohraphy is the art of making images from inkblots