Fragments of childhood memories from her annual visits to her paternal grandparents’ home in Punjab, India, are forever etched in the artist’s mind. A wooden door with an iron knocker… a dark, cool, narrow passageway… a small kitchen with a concrete floor and shelves on two walls… windowless living rooms… the sound of rain drumming down on the courtyard floor and the touch of wet stone on the soles of her feet.

This is the house where Namita Paul was born. It is also the house where her grandparents began rebuilding their lives, after they were displaced from their home during the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. While it’s no longer in the family, it remains in her subconscious.

W.M.265 is a meditation on memory within a specific architectural space. The large-scale installation is constructed with indigo-dyed canvas bricks which form an abstract grid upon which other materials are added. Its composition, color, and geometric planes heighten the monumentality of this work, while three-dimensional nooks and recessed spaces hold smaller objects of significance for the artist.

Originally conceived as a personal exploration of memory, history, and familial legacy, W.M.265 marked Paul’s first significant exploration of place as a source of artistic inspiration. The search for home, both as a physical place and a metaphorical construct, alongside an ongoing engagement with the built environment—its geometry, and the tension between public and private spaces—continues to shape her artistic practice.

Namita Paul