About This Artwork

“Garland of Melodies” reinvents in abstraction the Ragamala, a medieval court tradition in India that brought together music, painting and poetry. The notion of circularity/cyclicity has great significance in ancient Indian philosophy. Classical Indian music shares a deep relationship with the various moods of nature and the human heart, both in their changing hours and seasons. In a sense the external world becomes a reflection of the internal world. Each raga is related to a certain mood or rasa, the emotional states defined in Indian aesthetic theory, and the aim of the rendition in melody and colour is to achieve this rasa to perfection. Each of the twelve circular oil paintings in this series represent a raga associated with a particular time across the cycle of the day.

About the Artist

Bonobithi Biswas

A multidisciplinary Indian visual artist, curator and researcher based between Paris and Mumbai, Bonobithi’s synesthetic arts practice interweaves diverse analogue and digital media, chiefly mixed reality, painting and multilingual creative writing to create multisensory storytelling experiences. A multidisciplinary Indian visual artist, curator and researcher based between Paris and Mumbai, Bonobithi is obsessed with trespassing figurative borders. Her synesthetic arts practice interweaves diverse analogue and digital media, chiefly mixed reality, painting and multilingual creative writing to create multisensory storytelling experiences. The thematic focus of her arts practice is the South Asian post-colonial historic-cultural landscape, synesthetic multilingualism, identity of the female body of colour, and intercultural dialogue through shared safe spaces. She has a Master of Fine Arts in Transdisciplinary New Media from Paris College of Art, Paris, France. Having participated in various artist residencies and group and solo exhibitions internationally, Bonobithi’s works have been extensively displayed in cities across Europe and Asia, including the 59th Venice Biennale of Art. She is a member of the multicultural artist collectives COMEX-ARC and WE Collective.