'Most of my work is linked to my roots'

A Fistful of Sky, artist Subodh Gupta's new exhibition, opened at the Art House of Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in Mumbai on April 3.

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Showing until May 17, the exhibition, arguably the artist’s biggest yet in India, is mounted on four floors, reflecting his creative philosophy rooted in ritual, labour, migration and memory through the now familiar medium of ordinary household material.A dense wall of flattened, used pans expands the subject of domestic labour articulated in his Proust series while brass and stainless steel mould the long practice of communal eating in Bihar into the idea of respect and patience in the installation, School. Migration meets hope in Door, another installation involving polished brass. Presented by Nature Morte gallery, the exhibition, curated by British curator and former director of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Claire Lilley, contains mostly new works like the titular installation, A Fistful of Sky (2026), a massive installation of nine beds on a whole floor filled with old TV sets, kitchen grinding stones and cakes of cow dung representing memories and migration. Gupta speaks with Faizal Khan about the artistic process and philosophy and what drives him to create works for exhibitions across the country. Edited excerpts:

A Fistful of Sky comes just under a year-and-a-half after The Way Home, your last exhibition at the Bihar Museum in Patna in which the sculptures and paintings linked you to your roots, the city you were born in. What is the artistic philosophy of your new exhibition?