Satadru Sovan Banduri’s show in Hyderabad focuses on biodiversity facing existential threat

A peacock with a disoriented gaze, a blue poison dart frog from the Amazon struggling to reproduce, and migratory birds and blossoms disrupted by shifting climate patterns — Satadru Sovan Banduri’s acrylic and gouache paintings, on display in Hyderabad, strike a deeply emotional chord.

In his ongoing exhibition Disappearing Echoes of the Isolated at Kalakriti Art Gallery, the artist turns his gaze to biodiversity under threat. His evocative works explore environmental concerns such as rising sea levels, tectonic shifts, tsunamis, and the silent extinction of flora and fauna, all underscoring the fragility of ecological systems.

Peacock loses home

“Imagine losing a place that once belonged to you,” says Satadru Sovan Banduri, referring to a painting of India’s national bird — the blue peacock. In Echoes from the Displaced, a peacock stands silenced and confused atop a cold stone. Its familiar habitat and fellow birds are missing, replaced by fragmented flora and unfamiliar fungal growths.

The work is Sovan’s artistic response to the ecologically sensitive Kanche–Gachibowli land conflict in Hyderabad. Once a thriving natural space teeming with deer and peacocks, the 400-acre stretch was recently in the news due to controversial deforestation efforts undertaken without proper environmental assessment. A Public Interest Litigation filed by concerned citizens and the intervention of the Supreme Court halted halt the land’s auction.

In another painting, a deer stands surrounded by bulldozers, trying to navigate its sense of displacement, while a peacock circles aimlessly, searching for its nest. “Animals carry the scars of bulldozers — but we simply don’t care,” the artist notes.

Looking for new teritory

In one striking image, aquatic animals like jellyfish and crabs — displaced by rapidly altering marine ecosystems — are seen soaring skyward, perhaps towards Mars or the moon, in search of a new place to survive. T

Meanwhile, another work titled Makeshift Planet Will Host Us shifts focus to the South Pole, specifically Antarctica, home to some of the planet’s most iconic and vulnerable species. “Penguins, especially the emperor penguin, are unique to this region,” says Satadru Sovan Banduri. Sharing the frame are Weddell and leopard seals, various whale species such as orcas and humpbacks, and seabirds like albatrosses and skuas, all seemingly hoping for a temporary replacement for their vanishing home. 

With over two decades of experience in the arts, Satadru Sovan Banduri began his journey as an animation designer. Trained in gouache and tempera techniques at the Bengal School of Art, and later as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California where he studied new media, Sovan seamlessly blends the tactile with the technological.

“I work on an unset canvas on the floor,” he says, describing his layered, immersive approach. His process begins with poetry, followed by ecological research. The composition is first laid out digitally, then transferred to canvas and brought to life with colour.

To frame his paintings, a carpenter constructs sculptural, uneven borders, giving the works a three-dimensional quality. These irregular edges also carry meaning: “The maps are changing every day because of global warming,” he says. “So my works have no fixed shape.”

The real challenge, says the artist, was capturing the emotional weight of what the animals are going through. “I had to represent their voice,” he explains, “so that viewers could hear their howls.”

Disappearing Echoes of the Isolated’ at Kalakriti Art Gallery is on till August 5. His acrylic with gouache paintings depict displacement and environmental concerns