This is Ghosh's debut solo exhibition and marks the first time this exciting new artist is being shown in Mumbai. Having studied in Shantiniketan and Baroda, the artist's present series is a meditation on the nature of fables and folklore often shown through the lens of autobiography. The narrative structure of the works takes us through a plethora of tales where animals morph into a range of characters. The scenes that are portrayed take small town stories and blow them up to large scale fantasies.

Ghosh's canvases are filled with desire: it seems to be the engine for the narratives that the artist employs. In these tableaux animals and human cavort in fantastical landscapes, filled with iridescent yellows, blues and greens. The characters in the artist's work are often found to be at the point of first encounter; a pack of dogs come across a car or a gramophone; a lion and a deer are introduced to the viewer in the context of first date. These are images filled with latent potential: we expect that following the moment caught on canvas there might be an escalation in the emotions hinted at.

The art historical references which inform Ghosh's work are plentiful. Mughal and Rajasthani miniature influences are apparent in the manner in which she builds up her landscapes, especially in the detailed brush work that hints at water, diaphanous material, trees and foliage. Even some of her characters (see the large crocodile in one work) strongly reference early Mughal work. Moreover her extensive use of tempera roots Ghosh's work firmly in an indigenous locale.

Ghosh's Bengali heritage seems also to feed into her works through the characterisation of her human subjects and an immediately arresting reference point is the cartoon work of Gaganendranath Tagore. Tagore was particularly interested in lampooning the political class of the Bengali bourgeoisie during the early part of the 20th Century and it is the lasciviousness and inherent greed presented in his characterisations which have filtered into Ghosh's canvases.

The resulting works seem to play in the register of European Orientalist novels written in the 18th Century. This is especially true when Ghosh employs her own portrait. We are introduced to her riding a crocodile, travelling in a cloud with a multi-headed companion, or even being carried along in a shopping bag. By introducing herself as the protagonist of particular works, and by rendering her own image with a realism absent from any other of her characters, we are forced to regard her as a traveller interposing herself into a foreign place.

By unveiling a multitude of fabulous fables, Ghosh has presented the art scene with a new and fresh voice whose distinctive vocabulary is likely to become a force to be reckoned with among the country's emerging painting scene.

Mortimer Chatterjee