“Counter Poetry”: Pinaki Ranjan Mohanty’s changing Chilika

Art Centrix Space is presenting Counter Poetry, the first solo exhibition in India by Bhubaneswar-based artist Pinaki Ranjan Mohanty, at its Jain Farm space in Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, until November 20. Curated by Sibdas Sengupta, the exhibition brings together large-scale sculptures made from wood and stone collected around Chilika Lake in Odisha, alongside paintings inspired by the lake’s changing landscape.

Having grown up near Chilika, Mohanty has maintained a close connection with the lake and its surrounding communities.

His works draw on observations of the landscape and fishing communities whose livelihoods depend on it. Materials collected from the lake and its surroundings become part of his sculptures, while flamingos recur as a motif linked to migration, return and the changing ecosystem.

The title Counter Poetry refers to the contrast between romanticised descriptions of Chilika and the realities facing the lake today. The exhibition looks at sedimentation, changes to the shoreline, construction and growing pressure on the ecosystem and communities around it.

Rather than presenting Chilika simply as a picturesque landscape, Mohanty examines how the lake has changed over time and what those changes mean for the people and natural life connected to it. His paintings capture shifts in colour, season and atmosphere, while the sculptures bring physical fragments of the landscape into the gallery.

Mohanty’s practice combines memory, observation and material drawn from the landscape. The works ultimately present Chilika not as a fixed image, but as a place continually shaped by environmental and human changes.

When: Until November 20; 11 AM–6 PM

Where: Art Centrix Space, Jain Farm, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi