We come, we eat, we sleep - NS Harsha

NS Harsha

We come, we eat, we sleep 1991–2001

Not Currently on Display

NS Harsha’s work includes drawing, painting, murals, rangoli (traditional powdered floor designs) on paper and community-based projects. Harsha has stated that ‘the rituals and symbols of Indian tradition are very much woven with my life and art’. We come, we eat, we sleep explores the rituals that are relevant to contemporary life. As Harsha explains: ‘I wanted to make a work which defines the basic idea of getting into a space, and live in that abstract space for some time, and leave that space after one consumes that space.’¹

In each painting, the masses of tiny figures are engaged in simple and universal activities, yet Harsha has portrayed each person intimately, conveying a sense that every individual is united by the eternal rhythms and cycles of life.

Endnotes:

1. Artist’s file, QAGOMA Research Library.

NS Harsha was born in Mysore, India, in 1969. He draws on a range of influences including traditional Indian painting techniques and the ‘Company’ style (which developed out of European interest in ‘native’ life in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries), popular art and Western art history.

Harsha focuses on local events as a way of examining issues relating to globalisation, cultural transformation, socio-economic disparity and labour relations. His work combines personal experience with the shared narratives and broader socio-political scenarios of the contemporary world.

NS HarshaWe come, we eat, we sleep 1991–2001

Endnotes:

NS Harsha
We come, we eat, we sleep 1991–2001