Metamorphosis is an exploration of transience—of forms, of thought, of human and ecological states of being. Phaneendra’s meticulous craftsmanship allows his subjects to oscillate between dream and dystopia, embedding them within a space that is neither real nor entirely imagined. His figures, often distorted or anthropomorphized, function as conduits of philosophical inquiry, questioning notions of identity, impermanence, and the artificiality of appearance. The presence of fragile elements throughout his practice, from butterflies to bougainvillea’s, and wings of all forms represent the fragility and beauty that intermediates the chaos of humanity. He places these dichotomous elements together to speak to the larger essence of life – sparking a conversation on the feeling of being human, of being mortal beings.
The exhibition is structured as a progression, beginning with his earlier, more figural compositions that lean towards narrative realism. Here, his pen-and-ink drawings depict human figures ensnared in the tensions of self-awareness, reflecting an early engagement with existential thought. As the works unfold, the formal elements shift towards abstraction—his subjects fragment, dissolve, and merge into swirling, multi-dimensional spaces that suggest a deepening interrogation of transformation itself.
PNC’s works are not prescriptive; they do not impose narratives but rather act as open-ended invitations to contemplate evolution in its many forms. Metamorphosis asks us: Are we, as individuals and as a society, ever truly stable? Or are we in a perpetual state of becoming—an endless negotiation between the worlds we construct and those that shape us?
This perpetual state of becoming and unbecoming acts as a liminal space with shifting forms, the amalgamation of body and object, the tethered and the free. Each figuration unravels before you, becoming one with the elements before detaching once again. Nothing is stagnant, we are sites under construction, caught and released time and again by forces unknown to us. Phaneendra creates these territories in his use of negative space as much as his intense, claustrophobic compositions of beauty and the sublime. A space of uneasy intimacy, where the body remembers its ancestry, and where subjectivity reveals its most fragile infrastructure – the human mind.
The exhibition foregrounds his nuanced engagement with contrast—not merely formal, as seen in his monochromatic palette, but conceptual, as structural rigidity collides with organic, metamorphic forms. This dialectical approach threads through his expansive canvases, intricately worked drawings on paper, and sculptural interventions, each medium offering a different register of transformation. The spatial curation ensures that PNC’s works unfold like a journey rather than a static display—each room a chapter in his ever-expanding lexicon of metamorphic possibilities.
A significant throughline in Metamorphosis is PNC’s use of contrast—not only in his monochromatic works but in the juxtaposition of rigid architectural elements with organic, fluid forms. His more recent pieces demonstrate a pronounced engagement with surrealist spatiality, where anatomical structures mutate into landscapes and vice versa. With the use of elements that evoke the iridescence of nature’s most fleeting marvels, these motifs are not illustrative but symbolic, charged with an underlying poetics of becoming.
The butterfly—delicate yet enduring—emerges as a recurring symbol and central metaphor associated with transcendence. It reminds us that even the most fragile forms carry histories of strength. The monarch butterfly, in particular, resonates as a totem of migration, survival, and cyclical change. Its presence is not sentimental, but emblematic of a deeper inquiry into what it means to evolve, to suffer, and to emerge altered—yet persistently human.
Across the exhibition, the human form is a locus of uncertainty and introspection, presented not as stable or singular, but as an assemblage-stitched together from memory, sensation and contradiction. His figures are marked by inquiry: bodies that carry mechanisms—nuts, bolts, screws—not as prosthetics of permanence, but as temporary anchors in a state of flux. These mechanical appendages suggest repair, adaptation, and the impossibility of a fixed identity. Here, fragmentation is not decay, but a method of survival.
The grotesque surfaces in his practice not as a distortion, but as a curatorial device—an aesthetic strategy that resists closure and embraces ambiguity. Chaturvedi’s imagery flickers between the familiar and the uncanny, allowing each work to operate as a site of tension: between adornment and asceticism, motion and static, nature and industry. Wires and sockets—symbols of connectivity and control—serve both as constraints and conduits, underscoring the dualities within each piece.
The body acts as a threshold where form is always in flux, always asking questions. What emerges is not an answer, but a slow, unravelling of uncertainty. Phaneendra speaks to the body as a place of inheritance, where transformation is silent and internal, and the continuous shifts within us consequence a shedding of the skin outside of us. At the centre of these figures lies a paradox—they are vulnerable, yet armoured; fragmented, yet poised.
When we look at Phaneendra’s transformation to his more recent works, the butterfly and the body that once acted as a symbol of uncontrolled forces, of mortality, of suffering and the dichotomy of breath and stillness, now act as a symbol of transformation and freedom, from disease, in all its forms, from suffering, from the fear of being mortal. This stillness is not submission—it is resolve. A quiet form of resistance. A body that endures because it must.
Metamorphosis ultimately traces a trajectory—from the body as a symbol of mortality and suffering to one of emancipation and reconstitution. In this unfolding, PNC does not offer closure, but rather a contemplative space: an open-ended gesture toward the radical possibility of freedom that resides in accepting impermanence.
Phaneendra’s series of burnt switchboards, were initially conceived in 2014 and later immolated in 2023. These works function as both epilogue and ignition—signifying the beginning and a closing of a chapter in his creative and personal journey. For the artist, the switchboard becomes a dual metaphor: a leap of faith and a site of rupture—where human experience gives way to introspective combustion.
In titling these works after ashrams—the traditional life stages in Hindu philosophy—Chaturvedi evokes the spiritual cadence of life’s transitions. Each reference becomes a meditation on the passage of time and the relinquishing of form. The burnt surfaces, stripped of function, bear witness to the fragility of control and the gravity of silence. They articulate a finality—not of annihilation, but of transformation—a moment when the body, the self, and even the artwork itself, dissolve into something unspoken.
