Two Peacocks
A peacock couple sits on a tree in peaceful bliss, in love, neck in neck. The tree is located near a river, surrounded by stone with grass growing in its pockets. The river has many peaks of high mountains now submerged.
Mahant’s Elephant
Decorated elephant is chained to a tree that grows on 'balu' (type of earth) ground. Birds are frolicking on the tree, hoping from one branch to the other. The elephant belongs to a Mahant (head of a Hindu monastery) who generally keep elephants.
Gopi Vastraharan
Gopi Vastraharan” is a popular theme of one of Krishna's youthful pranks growing up in Vrindavan. Here he is shown playing a flute while perched in the branches of a kadamba tree and watching the gopis (cowherding milkmaids) bathe in the Jamuna River. Krishna has mischievously placed their clothes well beyond their reach, upon the high branches of the tree. The Gopi Vastraharan is part of Krishna's leela (divine pastimes), as told in the Bhagavata Purana. Although Naresh shows the gopi's clothes strewn about the tree's branches, the embarrassed gopis are still shown as clothed--in deference to Mithila's prevailing conservative taboos regarding nudity; (viewers of the picture are simply expected to know the whole story). Naresh has also depicted grazing cows, swimming fish, blossoming lotuses, and birds singing amidst the kadamba tree's blooming branches.
Museum Tree
On his first visit to Madhya Pradesh, Naresh was accompanied by Kaushik Jha and they were welcomed to Bhopal by their friend and patron, John Bowles, along with the head of Eklavya, Tultul Biswas. Tultul toured them around Bhimbetka, and on their own they visited the city's Tribal Museum. The parking lot at the museum's entry reminded Naresh of a large canvas. Within its open space was a dead tree on a platform, which later inspired him to create this painting. Here, depicted within the centre of a courtyard, appears the dead tree--from which Naresh has added suspended, framed pictures of birds to evoke the memory of the tree's bird-inhabited former life. Surrounding the courtyard are paintings of animals that existed more abundantly during his ancestors' times. Naresh, Kaushik and John appear in the courtyard with other visitors, including parents who point at and explain these pictures to their children.
Surya
The Sun (Surya) is a prominent, ancient divinity embodying energy, cosmic order, and life--here depicted as a radiant circle with a human face complete with eyes, nose, moustache and tilak, and further embellished with a series of various border designs. It is a simple and elegant painting of Surya.
Four Trees
This painting is divided into four equal compartments, each showing a tree with birds perched on its branches. Peacocks sit on three of the trees, while bats hang from the one (shown in the lower right quadrant)--clinging to its branches with one leg while the other rests, periodically alternating positions.
Bird Net
Intersecting diagonal lines form borders framing a variety of individual bird depictions, including: peacocks, silli, titri, forest hens, black crows, hens, ducks and even Garuda (the mythical bird of Vishnu). Despite the occasional redundancies (e.g., the peacock is separately depicted six times) each differs from the others in its details.
Bird House
The painting shows a tree with wooden houses made for the birds placed there by a kind man who is empathetic towards birds. The birds have occupied the houses and are shown looking out from the doors of these tiny houses. There is a stream below with fishes.
Fish Ras
Raslila (the dance of divine love, mentioned in Bhagavata Purana and Gita Govinda), has become a popular theme performed in various dance styles throughout India (such as Kathak, Bharatnatyam and Odissi). It features Krishna standing and playing a flute, while his devoted gopis (female cowherds) dance in a circle around him. Raslila belongs to Hinduism's Vaisnav tradition of bhakti (devotion, surrender and worship), wherein a bhakta (devotee) becomes one with Krishna. Here Naresh Paswan depicts a 'Raslila of Fish' which, if witnessed in nature (or seen in art), can bring good luck to the viewer. According to Naresh: “We in Mithila consider fish auspicious, and--if we see a fish--we trust our work will be well accomplished.” Reflecting on how fish frolic in their aquatic world, he also observes that: “Those who have not gone into the water think that it is just water, but that is not the case. There are different kind of grass in the water, like various trees in the forest.” Thus he affirms the richness of diversity within a unified whole.
Sita Haran
This painting depicts a scene from the Ramayana, in which Sita is shown seated in the Ashok Vatika (Ashok garden) where Hanuman has been sent and there witnesses Ravana approaching her. Hanuman is very angry, but waits for Ravan to leave, and only then drops Rama's ring down to Sita. She recognises the ring and inquires about Rama's and Laxman's welfare. Hanuman is hungry and, upon seeing the fruits left behind for Sita, inquires about the orchard from whence they came. He goes to the orchard, which is nearby, and starts eating the fruits--and also devours much of the garden too. He then visits Vibhishan, to whom he narrates the story of Sita's abduction. Vibhishan pleads with Ravana to surrender Sita and take shelter at Rama's feet. Hanuman is captured by Ravana's army, but they do not know how to kill him. At Hanuman's suggestion, they light his tail on fire, after which he proceeds to ignite all of Lanka. Naresh Paswan depicts these three epic Ramayana episodes into a single painting divided spatially into three sections by a boundary wall and trees. The depiction is unique in the spatial way each episode is shown, which requires a person to know the entire narrative in order to make sense of the painting. The three episodes shown here span across both space and time in such a way that what is shown in the picture's upper register is meant to be both behind and later than what appears in the lower register--a visual presentation also frequently found in Indian art as early as Sanchi's narrative reliefs.
Tiger meets Tigress
The tiger is referred by Naresh as a 'King' and here he's painted a tiger meeting an unknown tigress with three cubs in the jungle. There are monkeys and birds on the tree near the river and grasses of different kinds.
Two Elephants
This landscape painting depicts two elephants--standing near a river, under a large tree filled with birds.
Jungle Quiet
A brief description of the artwork's history, technique, or emotional resonance.
Whale In Ocean
Sea with frolicking whales while the sunsets, is a painting from his memory of his days in Mumbai where he worked for sometime. The cool setting sun views the fishes at play. A balanced composition painted in black and white.
Jungle
I am very fond of birds and animals and there is a demand for them in future too,” says Naresh. There are many kinds of forests with trees of many sizes and varieties, with many kinds of animals, some dangerous and some that live with human. What he shows here is a jungle with variety of trees, rivers, animals (including Zebras) and birds and mentions “there should be animals in the forest, there should be birds on top of trees, there should be snakes in the jungle too.” He however, shows a bridge across the wide river so that, “animals from this side can go to that side.
Aftermath of Flood
Floods was a common occurrence, which was experienced by Naresh in 1987 when he was very young. It impacted him who also saw the aftermath of the disaster and the flourishing of the trees and the coming of a new life emerging out on the receding of the floods.
Village Life
Naresh depicts a normal day in the life of his village showing interiors of two houses, a school, road, ground for sports and activities etc. One of the houses is shown with a newly arrived bride cooking on a mud burner kept in the open space in the centre of the house called 'Angan'. This is the central place where there is a well and a handpump. Naresh says, “once the water from the well was good for drinking, cooking etc. but now we all drink and cook from the water from handpump.” In the next house the man has just returned from work and his wife is shown serving him food and fanning him with a hand held fan called 'Baina'. There is a school nearby with roof covered with locally made mud tiles, sometimes the roof is also thatched with husk from harvested rice. Boys and girls are shown going to school with bags. A woman holding a child is shown retuning from the forest after collecting wood for the hearth. She walks towards the village on the road where a child is shown rolling a cycle tyre with a stick. Children are shown playing 'Pittu' a game played with broken tiles pilled one on top of another displaced by hitting with a ball. “The ground was initially used to play football but not any more,” says Naresh. The painting is one of calm routine, an everyday scene of a normal village.
Corona
In January 2020 the entire world faced one of the most devastating contagious disease attack caused by coronavirus resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms included fever, fatigue, cough, breathing difficulties, loss of smell, and loss of taste. The transmission was human to human leading to mass vaccination campaigns and other preventive measures including social distancing, quarantining, use of face masks, hand washing etc. Since, the infection lead to short term and long term complications resulting in pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, multi-organ failure, septic shock and death, the Government of India ordered a nationwide lockdown, limiting the movement of entire 1.38 billion population of India. This led to the mass movement of people across the country of a scale not seen since the partition in 1947. 3 The painting captures this disturbing and chaotic time by the artist Naresh Paswan who painted it while he was away to Oman employed for spraying pests control chemicals on the lawns of Golf Park, on Muscat Hills. The story narrated here shows the scale of anxiety and desperation of the immigrant workers seeking any and every means possible to travel back to their native town. They travelled by trains, buses, planes, tractors, cycle while some even walked miles to reach their families from big towns, small towns and neighbouring villages. The means of their livelihood also terminated abruptly. The numbers of people that died during this mass migration was unprecedented resulting in resource crunch leading to partial cremation of bodies, with dogs and other stray animals scavenging the remaining. The painting captures the tragedy and suffering at a personal level by bringing in stories of known individuals such as Jyoti Paswan who travelled on his cycle. The painting interacts with the viewer to pull the him/her into this historic and unprecedented times that touched their deepest emotions, leaving them overwhelmed with the scale, spread and depth of the event.