The Archaeology of Being is an exploration of grief, debris, loss, and transformation, reflecting

on moments when life is reordered in an instant.

Grief is a form of alchemy, a combustion that both destroys and transforms. It strips one down,

like a rocket burning up in the stratosphere, scorching away the superfluous—the scaffolding of

the familiar—until only the raw essence remains. We carry love, memory, hope, heartache, but to

let go and to release it into the vastness, one must surrender to the destruction. What remains is

raw and unrecognizable, yet it becomes a new foundation upon which we rebuild new structures.

The debris of a life lived is neither clutter nor a burden. It is the archaeology of being—a map of

where someone has been and what they have done, full of detours and dead ends, losses and

triumphs, and the quiet, unremarkable stretches in between. It is all that remains when the weight

of presence has slipped into memory—a testament to the fleeting, messy, extraordinary nature of

being alive. What was once unbearable, finds its place, orbiting steadily in the space of one’s

new life, a fixed point in the endless expanse.

My work is a placeholder for such debris: tatters of sentimental garments, a bridal veil,

vermillion (sindoor), plastic wedding bangles (chura), turmeric and vermillion plastic return

gifts (haldi, kumkum), dried flowers and leaves, and more… I use red to evoke the body’s

foundation it’s raw vulnerability, love and rage, birth and death. My engagement with these

themes continues into the act of making. The process is physical, and the work is done mostly on

the floor. As I apply and remove layers of paint and materials, tie and untie threads, tether and

untether sections, the reality of what is coming together and coming apart reveals itself. Sutured

canvas walls become the cleared ground where new life begins.