Comments by Peter Bevan
April 2003

He is an artist who has adapted traditional modes of art practice, to create works which engage with the world dominated by western notions of art, but without a loss of authenticity, ie: "indianness". The vital and living traditions of India are inspirational to his work but are incorporated with elements of contemporary international art, such as, minimalism, installation and performance art. In this way Ganesh fuses past and present not only within his own iconography but through an internationally resonant language of forms.

For him, sculptural materials have a metaphysical meaning, for example, the ambiguous use of polyester resin, which is made to look like stone, presents a tension between image and reality. The considerable quality of his craftsmanship is not intended to impress with mere dexterity but to register another set of meanings into the whole spirit/matter network. As he says…"each mark, each dot on the surface has its own important meaning, like repetition in ritual chanting". Both in conceptual orientation and in the essentially rounded and pneumatic characteristics of his modelling, Ganesh Gohain is consistently within the tradition of Indian sculpture. He espouses this tradition and the importance of connections between generations.

Ganesh Gohain's conception of art is metaphysical. He has a desire to fuse all aspects of his life, including art, into a meaningful whole. And although he manipulates cultural and in some instances, universal symbolism, his metaphysics are also a network of personal reflections. They revel in historical and philosophical sources incorporated with autobiographical references too subtle to be anything other than enigmatic. But this is their strength. These works truly emerge from a fertile imagination, replete with metaphor, connecting the spiritual, the cultural and the material, bound up with the logic and the humour of personal history.

These suggestive works mobilise our associative faculties and generate connections between external and internal worlds.They are about analogy as a fundamentally proactive mode of perception, fully sensual and conceptual, gestured towards understanding. They demonstrate the urge to connect; part to whole, visible to invisible, known to unknown, individual to group.

Ganesh Gohain's inate drive for connectedness, within his own life, within his culture and across cultures, is also a desire to be part of a global network of understanding difference and similarity. All human perception involves a simultaneous perception of the self and the environment, it is an evolutionary principle of survival but also for development. It is an ecologically conscious perception which defines the self as relational rather than self-contained. We actively shape our inner and outer worlds psychologically and physically to power the motor of understanding. Ganesh Gohain's work engages with the world in this way, his present emanates from his past and is pregnant with his future.

But he is not a philosopher; his approach is as an artist. In his work and through the way he works, he acknowledges such issues, and presents to us moments of awareness and personal insight, in which we can share. His works stimulate the viewer to become aware of their own sense of being, sense of identity and of their relationships with others. Gohain refers especially to family relationships and those with other persons from whom he has learnt about life and about art.”

(The author is from Glasgow School of Art, Scotland)