Phaneendra Nath Chaturvedi and a Metamorphosis in Banaras

The Hindu

08-05-2025

Change is inevitable, and more often than not, unpredictable and unconforming. It is the only thing that can challenge the status quo, and enable transformation. In his latest exhibit titled Metamorphosis, Phaneendra Nath Chaturvedi, 44, holds on to this idea of change and celebrates it through 59 pieces of carefully composed artworks.
'For the last 25 years, my art has explored themes of self, duality, and transformation,' he says. 'As an artist, I've always been drawn to the blurry line between human and non-human, real and unreal, natural and artificial. These tensions show up in my human-like figures — creatures stuck between species, genders, eras, and feelings.'
With his childhood and formative years spent in Banaras, Chaturvedi's body of work heavily draws inspiration from the old city of temples. A place that in its capacity of life and death, in everyday moments of rituals, symbols, and myths, has shaped his artistic bearing.
'Varanasi does not exist on a map; it breathes, decays, regenerates, and transcends. It is a living paradox — timeless and contemporary, sacred and nonreligious, private and harrowing. These contradictions have definitely affected me. The images that made up daily life in Varanasi were monkeys swaying on crumbling balconies, the fragrance of marigolds, chanting of mantras, smoke overhead as funeral pyres were lit. All of these negated the temporal and metaphysical, and my early exposure taught me to look beyond the surface of things, to see beauty in decay, and to imagine story in silence. That intuition still informs how I create compositional landscapes and characters.'
Speaking through the butterfly
Through paper, wood, stainless steel, fibreglass and larger-than-life canvasses, Metamorphosis explores how we handle inner shifts in a world that's always changing. It's like a picture diary showing perseverance, self-reflection, and personal growth.
A stand-out symbol in Chaturvedi's works is the butterfly, an omnipresent element that serves as a signifier and a tenuously-balanced witness of transformation. It speaks a great deal about several themes the visual artist likes to work with: fleetingness, renewal, beauty born of struggle, and the fragile interplay between vulnerability and strength.
'In many cultures, butterflies are seen as the souls, messengers, or metonymic symbols for transcendence. For me, they have become a metaphor for the human condition. When I portray butterflies in stainless steel sculptures, their iridescence acts as a metaphor for fragility and resilience [against] the artificiality of the industrialised world. And in my paper works, they appear in ambiguous situations, serving as witnesses to change.'
No Kafkaesque inspiration
At a time when the art world is under a lot of scrutiny, because of the Anita Dube-Aamir Aziz controversy — involving the usage of the latter's poem without due credit or consent — Chaturvedi's exhibit appears closely reminiscent of Prague-born German Franz Kafka's seminal novella in both name and nature. 'If my work has anything in common with Kafka's ideas, it's by chance, not on purpose,' he shares. 'My art comes from a whole different background, rooted in my own life story. So, while Kafka wrestles with alienation, absurdity, and psychological transformation in the context of Europe, I engage in similar ruminations through the lens of Banaras, and the mythological, ritualised and everyday life in India.'
Metamorphosis, curated by Sanya Malik, is on view till today at Bikaner House, and till May 30 at the Black Cube Gallery in Hauz Khas.
The independent writer is Delhi-based.