Gods and Crime Scenes

Arpan Ghosh

Kolkata, India

‘Gods and Crime Scenes’ is a series of paintings inspired by Roy Anderson’s movie ‘A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence’. In his films, Roy plays with absurd visual situations; they are bleak social criticisms characterized by absurdist deadpan acting and surrealism. 

 I took snapshots of several scenes in Roy’s film, made print-outs of the snapshots, then collaged and painted on them. Each of the works shows an uncanny scene that refers to the helplessness and contradictory situations in our life.

The images of Hindu mythology's Gods and Goddesses, endowed with magical powers, are from the paintings of Raja Ravi Varma.  Their presence in the snapshots contribute to the surrealism of the situations.