Gourishankar Soni

This artwork builds upon the same symbolic language but here the dominant form is a giant spade symbol (♠), inscribed with layered scripts resembling ancient hieroglyphs or coded languages. The spade — traditionally associated with games, fate, mortality, and transformation — becomes here a monumental field, like a stone tablet or sacred pyramid, radiating mystery and permanence.
Surrounding this central spade, small sculptural human figures in pale tones enact every day or ritualistic gestures: carrying burdens, sitting in contemplation, reaching upward, playing instruments, even wielding tools. Each appears caught in its own loop of activity, yet all are bound to the perimeter of the spade, like orbiting satellites or participants in a grand cycle. The presence of objects (coins, shields, vessels) adds another layer of symbolism, suggesting labour, material life, survival, and cultural memory.
Visually, the contrast is striking: the monumental flat inscriptional surface of the spade (blue, textured, silent) is set against the lively, tangible, and almost theatrical actions of the small white figures. This tension reflects the dialogue between the immensity of time/history (the coded spade) and the fleetingness of individual human life (the figurines).