The Open Studio / Uttam prajapat
Uttam prajapat
ARID LANDSCAPE
When the ground cracks, even the sky turns to dry earth
The whole page is the brown of mud after the water has gone.
The sky has split into plates, like a field with no rain.
A woman holds a post of wood and does not look at the smoke.
Houses pile on a tree whose roots hang loose in the air.
Two deer stand at the edge, small, near a little shrine.
The book is open. Its last page is turning into ground.
The work
Uttam Prajapat's work comes from his ties to Vatera village in the Sirohi district of Rajasthan. Mining in the Aravalli region is changing the land and the lives there. Prajapat does not draw the mines. He uses signs instead. Cracked ground fills the sky and a chimney sends up smoke. Houses crowd on a tree with bare roots. A tall block rises like a ladder. A book lies open as the cracks eat its page. Prajapat's college is Sir JJ School of Art, Architecture and Design in Mumbai.
In the artist’s words
“Uttam's practice emerges from his lived connection to Vatera village in the Sirohi district of Rajasthan. His work examines how mining reshapes land and life, leading to displacement, environmental degradation and the gradual erasure of indigenous ways of living. Rather than showing mining literally, he uses landscapes that appear fractured, altered or emptied.”
- Theme
- Mining and lost land
- Material
- Mixed media
- Size
- 23.4 × 33.1 cm
- Year
- 2025
- Edition
- 1
- Framed
- No
- About the artist
- SIR JJ SCHOOL OF ART ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN, MUMBAI
- From
- Sirohi
- Code
- RC-501
