Shelf-Life

Prashant Pandey reawakens perception of everyday life by destroying conventional logic when it comes to ways of seeing discarded objects. Through his use of recycled, reclaimed and found material like abandoned industrial containers, cigarette butts, cane trash, urine and blood - Pandey uses by-products of human activity and discarded material in new ways, interrupting the utilitarian cycle of everyday life.

The distortion of form slows down the act of perception between the audience and the object. In this manner, his work serves the poetic function of promoting seeing as opposed to recognizing something that is already familiar and known.

Although his medium is constantly shifting, his basic concern remains the same – a critical commentary on modern society. For instance through his sculptural work “Gift ”- an infant’s mutilated skull constructed out of a mosaic of pouches filled with urine, sweat, tears and formaldehyde, he protests the killing of unwanted girl foetuses, who, like urine and sweat are easily flushed out by the system in which they live. In his untitled sculpture that takes the shape of a boy made of expired chocolate, the melting form reflects lives in their endless process of becoming rather than being.

As you experience Pandey’s work, keep in mind the words of John Baldessari who once famously said, “Look at the subject as if you have never seen it before. Examine it from every side. Draw its outline with your hands and saturate yourself with it.”

If you let the work speak to you, it will have something to say. For starters, it questions the meaning of “shelf-life” through the use of material that is long past its supposed expiry date, inviting you to witness a resurrection of all that is forgotten and obscure.

-Sonia Nazareth