Artworks

The metal-shadow sculpture ‘The Song, The Note, The Whistle’ is the artist’s love-letter to Mumbai and its people. It speaks of chaos, fluidity, and movement; themes signifying the city’s unregulated growth and its relationship with the restless sea. The sculpture spotlights an androgynous-appearing figure surrounded by site-specific symbols informed by life at the dock. The method of construction, which brings together disparate steel moldings to create a single image, emphasizes its unstructured and layered character. Like Mumbai, it eschews any sense of order and dogma. A sense of irony pervades the work, reminiscent of the city of dreams whose allure captures its inhabitants in a circus of illusions. As the light shifts and the shadows change, the piece continuously transforms and takes on a new life. The surrealist form casts a shadow to reveal a space of personal and collective utopia, an idea underpinning Sethi’s body of work.