While artist Pratul Dash has been sharpening his skills of rendering the painted surface with a seductive realism, he also seeks to address the predicament of living in a world that has pushed itself to a precarious edge. This recent suite of paintings lures us into landscapes that amplify the twilight zone, situating us in undefined locales, perhaps imaginary sites, to contemplate a world that is at once familiar, strange and unsettling in its configuration.

Dash juxtaposes motifs obliquely hinting at depleting resources, waste of water and land, disappearing trees and a disoriented animal world. Butterflies in the intense blue sky in The Night Life of a Lost Prince, restlessly hover around, disoriented and distraught in the absence of flowers. This is reiterated in a flowerless landscape where lotuses seem to be falling from the sky along with the stars. The artist turned angel is standing on an unstable platform, with his wings caught in flames. Seeing no escape, he questions his own being. How does one accept what one does not believe in?