Footnotes

Provenance
Property from a private collection, England.
Acquired from the artist.

Kushwah is a contemporary photographer whose meticulously staged images inhabit a space between reality and imagination. Born in 1983, he has developed a distinctive practice that merges fashion aesthetics with fine art sensibilities, producing photographs that are at once playful, enigmatic, and psychologically charged.

Drawing inspiration from Freudian theories, the European Surrealists, and the ephemeral whimsy of daydreams, Kushwah constructs visual narratives that unfold like fragments of memory or dream sequences. His compositions are carefully orchestrated, often populated with symbolic objects and figures, and suffused with a painterly attention to light, colour, and atmosphere. This deliberate staging allows his works to transcend straightforward representation, moving instead into the realm of allegory and subconscious desire.

Across his practice, Kushwah challenges viewers to enter a world where fantasy and reality blur, and where the everyday is transformed into something extraordinary. His work continues the lineage of Surrealist exploration, yet remains firmly contemporary—rooted in a poetic engagement with personal imagination and universal themes of longing, identity, and transcendence.

Ophelia and the Flying Balloons, printed on Harman Crystaljet Lustre paper, exemplifies Kushwah's ability to weave together poetic allegory and visual splendour. Drawing on the literary resonance of Shakespeare's Ophelia—an archetype of fragility, beauty, and tragic intensity—Kushwah reimagines her within his surreal photographic world. The inclusion of floating balloons introduces a counterpoint of whimsy and lightness, creating a tension between melancholy and play, mortality and transcendence.

The choice of Harman Crystaljet Lustre paper enhances the work's luminous quality, allowing subtle tonal variations and a painterly depth that underscores the photograph's narrative complexity. Through this work, Kushwah demonstrates how contemporary photography can engage with literary and artistic traditions while constructing entirely new mythologies for the present.