Things Felt But Not Quite Expressed (2022 - Ongoing)
The Introvert, 2022Soft Pastel on paper
50x70 cm
Saturday Night, 2022Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Stranger Things Season 4 Episode 1, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Learning to slurp on noodles with Kosuke in Kamakura, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Siblings, 2023Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
First Love, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
24x30 cm
All I wanted was to get myself a fucking beer, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
50x70 cm
Did you feel the tremors last night?, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
50x70 cm
Asshole, 2023Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
J’s upcoming holiday, 2022
Soft Pastel on paper
18x24 cm
School days, 2022
Soft Pastel on paper
18x24 cm
Mother, 2023Soft Pastel on paper
24x30 cm
Cats of Tara, 2022 (re-worked in 2023)
Soft Pastel on paper
24x30 cm
Dance, 2022
Soft Pastel on paper
24x30 cm
It was spring but he was not there, 2022Soft Pastel on paper
70x100 cm
The misunderstood asshole, 2022 (re-worked in 2023)
Soft Pastel on paper
50x70 cm
Father with illness, 2022
Soft Pastel on paper
50x70 cm
Mum’s winter garden, 2022Soft Pastel on paper
18x24 cm
Summer days in Delhi - 1993, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
70x100 cm
The green dress, 2022
Soft Pastel on paper
70x100 cm
Show-off’s at the family lunch, 2022
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
A sudden bout of love, just before bath, 2022
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Birthday cake and pea soup in South Delhi, 2023Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Winter evenings at the skating rink in Pokhara, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
70x100 cm
Kebab mein haddi, 2023Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Sunday mornings, 2022
Soft Pastel on paper
24x30 cm
Afternoons at the visa application centre, 2022
Soft Pastel on paper
24x30 cm
Summer trip with A, 2023Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Movie night with A & J, 2022
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
An offering, 2022
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
That video work at the biennale, 2023Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Bigoted relative, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Summer evenings in Morjim, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Delhi to New York, all sixteen hours of it, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
That uncle who tries, 2022Soft Pastel on paper
50x70 cm
2:43 am, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
18x24 cm
Self portrait with new hair, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Reality check at 9 am, 2023Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Grandfather right after a long overdue apology. Or at least an attempt at it, 2023Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Yesterday, 2022
Soft Pastel on paper
50x70 cm
Mother, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
50x70 cm
Grandfather 1982, 2023Soft Pastel on paper
18x24 cm
Baby, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Remains of the day, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Friends, 2023Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Unfinished argument, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Teeth, 2022
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
My mornings with the human, 2022
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Summer Days, 2022Soft Pastel on paper
18x24 cm
The bus screeched to a halt and I made a mad dash to the toilet at the far end of the stop but, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
50x70 cm
Somebody said ‘play’, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
50x70cm
Marlene and mum, 2023Soft Pastel on paper
70x100 cm
Father and the last days of radiation, 2023Soft Pastel on paper
70x100 cm
3:26 am, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
18x24 cm
The internet sensation, 2022
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
The asshole who steals from my kitchen, 2022
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Bath, 2023Soft Pastel on paper
50x70 cm
Friends, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
70x100 cm
Birthday, 2023Soft Pastel on paper
50x70 cm
Creep, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
18x24 cm
Toad with butt, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
18x24 cm
School choir, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
70x100 cm
Morning after rain, 2023Soft Pastel on paper
18x24 cm
Privacy, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Remains of the day, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Last night, 2022Soft Pastel on paper
70x100 cm
Mother’s eyeliner, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
24x30 cm
They ran out of milk so Gupta uncle and Vicky rushed to Mother Dairy, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
24x30 cm
Parents on zoom, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
24x30 cm
Everyday meme, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
24x30 cm
Uno, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
24x30 cm
Done, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
50x70 cm
Done, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
18x24 cm
Wheeeeeeeeeeee, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
That asshole who is always at the right place at the right time, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
A sudden gust of wind, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
24x30 cm
The beginning of a secret love affair at dinner last night, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
24x30 cm
Grandmother, 2023Soft Pastel on paper
30x40 cm
Grandmother, 2023
Soft Pastel on paper
70x100 cm
Things Felt But Not Quite Expressed (2022-Ongoing), India Art Fair 2023
Things Felt But Not Quite Expressed (2022-Ongoing), India Art Fair 2023
Things Felt But Not Quite Expressed (2022-Ongoing), India Art Fair 2023
Things Felt But Not Quite Expressed (2022-Ongoing), India Art Fair 2023
Things Felt But Not Quite Expressed are reflections on everyday ordinariness with notions of love, joy, relationships and the familial at their core. The last two years were stippled by a series of events including damage caused to my lungs because of covid, a sudden death in the family and more recently the diagnosis of an illness with my father. For some time now, I have been unable to make photographs not only because of the aforementioned circumstances but also because of a growing numbness to the photographic image.
In June 2022, by chance I discovered drawing and felt unexpectedly attracted to it- maybe it was because of that long-forgotten feeling of tenderness which felt even more palpable the more I realized how one could also sculpt an image into existence with one’s fingers. Until then photography had taught me to collect the whole image all at once and I had missed out on the slowness induced by the process of drawing altogether. Or maybe it was because now the image drawn would constantly fall apart with each new layer added because of the softness of the pastels. It felt so different from that stiff permanence ushered in by the camera to be able to record and document, that I had grown so accustomed to and then finally wary of. Either way, these first drawings have allowed me to continue to collect together the fuzziness of memories as well as to give an extended imagination to my curiosities in a journal like manner not dissimilar to my early works in photography when making images was to experience catharsis to deal with a difficult period of illness at home at the time.
I still continue to search for undercurrents of the social and political even if looking towards my more immediate space, my human world continues to comprise animals as well, text continues to be a strong companion of the image as titles to the drawings to temper the tone of the images and I even recognize a familiar editing tendency drawn from the process of building photobooks that has started to emerge as this body of work continues to grow. Only the wavelength (language) and temperament of these more recent images drawn in pastels are different.
Sohrab Hura
January 2023