Drishya Maity

Lives and works in Kolkata, West Bengal, India

Artist statement

My work—both word and lens-based—centres people and places in strange, transitory, in-between spaces. I am particularly interested in observing and documenting the amorphous, ambiguous relationships between people and how they shape, reshape, connect with or complicate each other. I have always been fascinated by the timeless quality of photographic images: the ability of a photograph to capture and suspend a moment outside of its place in time and somehow render it simultaneously absent and intensely present within its context. There is a fidelity to photographs that make them the ideal medium to bear witness to our rapidly changing world. My photographic practice is grounded in and guided by this recognition of the power and the possibilities of the photographic image. My process involves waiting, observing, meditating on, and drawing inspiration from and references to the Indian subcontinent's many-layered cultural heritage, collective memory, and history — both personal and political, but also communal and subcontinental. I like to approach my work without any preconceived ideas. I come to my work knowing nothing, and in knowing nothing, I remain open to the discoveries the work may present. In this way, I remain an amateur — always struggling, making and re-making connections until that moment of clarity when everything falls into place. I think of everything I make as part of an ongoing, interconnected project about what it means to be human and live through the...

Artwork