In the contemporary art world, it is rare to find a voice that speaks with both the urgency of a news report and the tenderness of a bedtime story. Madhavi Joshi, an artist whose work defies easy categorization, manages this delicate balance with her 2024–2025 series, Little Big World. Through a masterful blend of collage, ink, and pen on paper, she constructs intricate thought-maps that explore the friction between human history, industrial progress, and the fragile innocence of the individual.
The most striking and persistent element of Madhavi’s work is the swarming presence of micro-figures—minimalist, ink-drawn beings that occupy almost every corner of her canvases. To see them merely as people is to miss their deeper function. These figures represent the Anatomy of the Collective Subconscious. They are the living synapses of a larger social brain. When Madhavi draws these figures within the silhouette of a head or a house, she is suggesting that our identity is not singular. We are, instead, vessels for thousands of ancestral stories, shared anxieties, and fleeting impulses. These figures function as the cellular memory of our civilization; the invisible, internal force that keeps the heavy machinery of history moving forward.
Madhavi’s signature style involves a jarring but poetic juxtaposition: worlds built from the scrapbook of reality. Ultimately, this series acts as a Palimpsest of History, where the ancient, tender rhythms of humanity are layered beneath the heavy machinery of modern progress. She places her stick-figure drawings—the ultimate symbol of primitive, unrefined humanity—against the real-world elements of photography and historical archives. It is a triumphant reminder that beneath the complex weight of the modern world, the human spirit remains an indestructible, playful sketch.
Event Venue
Pradarshak, Kalpana, Plot No 338, 12th Rd, Khar, Khar West, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400052, India
USD 0.00
