“I feel like I live in my own wonderland,” says Yashika Sugandh. Or, as she sometimes calls it, “La La Land.” This is not a metaphor. When contemporary artists look at what is normal, they refuse to stand still. The chairs give birth to parrots and monkeys through horn-shaped funnels; A snail floats in a floating hot air balloon as a hippopotamus gazes upward; Tree branches knot and twist, crawling with leopards, chameleons, blue elephants and rubber duckies. His world is one where the rules of reality are always tilted towards play.
That sensitivity was there from the beginning. Born in Calcutta in 1993 and brought up in Delhi, Yashika remembers the huge Semal tree that stood just outside the boundary walls of her house. She named it Bunny and hosted a picnic with it – two plates of chips, two glasses of Coke, blowing bubbles in its branches. What might seem like fantasy from the outside was, for her, survival: a way to make space for herself when human relationships seemed uncertain. “I always lacked confidence and felt a lack of acceptance and love,” she says. “Instead, I found solace in nature. Bunnies became my source of connection and joy.”
Yashika Fragrance
But Sugandh’s La La Land isn’t just innocent. Look at the works again: The colors are super-saturated, the candy-box bright, but they start to turn sour when stared at too long. The smile becomes too wide, the eyes bulge, the tips of the sweetness become somewhat quizzical. The works draw us in with childlike charm, only to reveal some stranger, darker mystery.
campaign peace
Why his wonderland matters
when his exhibition present (Hindi for “present”) has been introduced to the public, with the curatorial note describing “a deep reverence for nature” and “the nourishing essence of trees”. It’s honest, no doubt, but these lines turn his work into a moral lesson, turning trees into metaphors for virtue and birds into bullet points for duty. The life of work passes under the burden of “respect” and “responsibility”.
The weakness of such language is that it reflects how uncomfortable we have become with the game. We seek moral benefits rather than textual depth and imagination. But whimsy, as the scent reminds us, can be serious work – it shows us the irrational, strange and joyful tendencies that make us human. To consider this childish is to forget that imagination is one of our oldest ways of thinking.
Can I grow again?
Jamun (Watch)
His delicate brushwork borrows from Indian miniature painting – the same patience and density of detail, but turned towards a much stranger universe. “Yashika’s practice dreams in the context of ecology, yet remains largely rooted in our contemporary times,” says curator Sanya Malik. “Her hybrid creatures suggest harmony between humanity and nature. In the fast-paced environment we now live in, her practice allows us to slow down and acknowledge our encroachment on nature.”
Sanya Malik
move frame
The word ecology takes us to something that makes his work more relevant than just aesthetic pleasure. The Anthropocene – a term coined by scientists to describe our current era – is the era in which human activity has reshaped the planet’s climate, soils and biodiversity more than any natural force. Much of the conversation around this focuses on human guilt and responsibility. But that framework also puts humans at the center.
present Does the opposite. It does not preach about our place in nature; It destroys the very concept of “place”. His animals, objects and hybrids co-exist equally, part of an ecosystem indifferent to human significance. As Malik says, Yashica’s works “help us value life in a meaningful way” precisely because they take us away from its center. In doing so, they provide a quiet corrective to the arrogance of the Anthropocene – the notion that we are the heroes of the planet. His world reminds us that we are one of its unruly species, neither savior nor villain, but participants in its chaos.
a piece of me is now yours
summer holidays (fan)
Think about how we describe people when they’re weird: “mad genius,” “bizarre visionary,” “difficult but brilliant,” “absent-minded professor.” His strangeness becomes legend. Women, on the other hand, are called “crazy,” “manic,” “unstable,” “frivolous,” even “witches.” The same quirks that earn men cult status have long been used to undermine women.
This is why the wonderland of fragrance matters. It refuses forgiveness. He does not try to make strangeness respectable or make ornamentation profound. It simply emphasizes that the imagination – especially women’s imagination – does not need to be tamed to be meaningful.
Currently on till 31 October at Black Cube Gallery, New Delhi.
published – October 11, 2025 07:07 am IST