“This work commences with an encounter. Although I had always been aware of the Ajanta Caves, my childhood replete with the stories about the celestial sculptures encapsulated within them, it was only this year that I had visited the site. In the early morning hours it took some three hour journey by bus from Aurangabad station to their entrance. When I had arrived, the gates were closed. I stood around a frail fire with some tea stall owners who had yet to begin their day. They told me that I didn’t need a guide inside, everything was self-evident. I had believed them. By the time the sun had finally awakened, a long queue had formed and I began my steep ascent up numerous stairs with a crowd of local people to arrive at the mouth of the first cave. The force of the undulation gently pushed me in and I was in complete darkness. As my eyes adjusted I began to see figures, a canopy of them, left to right, right to left. The cave walls were illustrated with vivid and complex paintings of kings, queens, courtiers, travellers, monkeys, elephants, portraying everything from pathos to mirth, poverty to luxury, renunciation to war. Before I knew it, I was pushed out again and into the next. This ebbing and flow continued for the remaining twenty-eight caves. But my mind remained with the first two which contained the most refined murals. Up until that very moment, I had not known that Indian painting existed. I had left with a series of poor images, unfocused, hazy, underexposed, that I had taken with a handheld camera. I had left not having understood what I had seen, having encountered the limits of my knowledge.” – January, 2023 All images courtesy the artist and Dominik Mersch Gallery.