A forest world inhabited by creatures

Wed 29 Jan 2025

There are 12 zodiac animals in Chinese astrology, and the 2025 Lunar New Year ushers in the year of the Wood Snake. Here we feature Indian artist Varunika Saraf’s watercolour Thieves in the forest 2024 (illustrated) on display in ‘The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art’ that depicts a snake, revered in many cultures as a symbol of wisdom and ancient knowledge.

Saraf employs a rigorous painterly technique and scrupulously creates her own pigments or develops watercolour from specially sourced pigments. Composed in meticulous detail on a vast sheet of wasli paper, Thieves in the forest lovingly captures a world inhabited by creatures, spirits and mythological figures, where humans encroach at the edges of this natural habitat.

The exquisite painting is an aerial view of a lush densely wooded forest where every leaf is clearly shaped, and each tree bejewelled with intricate flowers. This canopy of colours in hues of green, blue and purple partially conceal a host of spiritual and celestial beings throughout —angels, snakes, dragons, monsters or forest djinns, tiny faces that peer through the brush, and winged gods and birds that inhabit the sky.

This cast of characters stand as a reminder that encroaching humanity can erase not only nature, but also indigenous people and knowledge.

Edited extract from the publication The 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, QAGOMA, 2024

Art that gives you hope
Asia Pacific Triennial
Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art
30 November 2024 – 27 April 2025
Free entry