The Open Studio / Esha Paul
Esha Paul
The Lost Existence
A fallen teddy bear in a thicket of silver branches
A yellow bear lies where someone dropped it.
Its green nose touches the cold grey floor.
White branches rise from pots wrapped in plastic.
They cross over the fur like wire.
Behind them pink and blue balloons go soft and far away.
The party is somewhere else now.
The work
Esha Paul paints a soft toy bear lying among bare branches. The canvas is large: 183 × 122 cm. Paul grew up with mass-produced plastic goods all around. Today Paul paints cheap toys and inflatable forms. Paul calls our time the 'Plastocene'. Here the balloons behind the bear fade into a grey haze. The choice of acrylic is deliberate. It is a plastic-based paint, so the material itself speaks of the artificial. Paul comes from Alipurduar.
In the artist’s words
“My practice is an investigation into the 'Plastocene', a contemporary era where the boundaries between the organic and the synthetic have become permanently blurred. Colour, in my work, acts as a sensory trap. My use of acrylic paint is a conceptual choice. As a plastic-based medium, it allows the material itself to participate in the narrative of artificiality.”
- Theme
- Plastic and lost childhood
- Material
- Acrylic on canvas
- Size
- 183 × 122 cm
- Year
- 2026
- Edition
- 1
- Framed
- Yes
- About the artist
- Sarojini Naidu School of Arts and Communication, University of Hyderabad
- From
- Alipurduar
- Code
- RC-408
