Pinaki Ranjan Mohanty’s Counter Poetry explores the changing ecology of Chilika Lake

For Bhubaneswar-based artist Pinaki Ranjan Mohanty, Lake Chilika is far more than a scenic backdrop. It is the core of his identity. In his debut solo exhibition in India, Counter Poetry, curated by Sibdas Sengupta at Art Centrix Space in New Delhi, the 40-year-old sculptor and painter presents a deeply personal record of Asia’s largest brackish lagoon.

Bringing together large-scale mixed-media sculptures and expansive oil canvases, the show examines the ecological shift, land politics, and environmental decay reshaping Chilika today. “Chilika is the source of energy in my body.

If there is no Chilika, I am not there. I am an artist, but I am Chilika first. Through this solo exhibition, I aim to move beyond the romanticised, 19th-Century picturesque gaze to confront the lived realities of ecological uncertainties of today,” says the artist.

The exhibition takes its name from a dialogue across time with legendary Odia poet Radhanath Ray, who over a century ago romanticised Chilika in verse. Mohanty reads Ray’s idyllic poetry against today’s wounded reality, where mountains are blasted for highways, sand silts up channels, and microplastics seep into marine life.

Counter Poetry is a record of a rapidly changing landscape with deep-seated love. Though this is his first solo, Mohanty brings a solid 20-year practice to the gallery. A graduate in sculpture from BK College of Art and Crafts, Bhubaneswar, and ceramic design from Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan, he has spent two decades exploring materials tied directly to the lake.

Monica Jain, founder and director of Art Centrix Space, who has shown his work since 2020, says, “He is an exceptional artist and virtually the sole voice in contemporary art dedicated entirely to Lake Chilika. What shines through every single piece is the palpable, authentic love he has for his land.” Mohanty gathers seasoned timber washed ashore during pre-monsoon storms to carve sculptures of migratory flamingos, letting the natural grain and shape of the wood dictate the bird’s form.

He also digs into the lakebed for ancient stone, fusing hundreds of fragments with iron, bronze, broken seashells, and discarded lake plastics to create dense, fossil-like monoliths. In works like Keeper, built from compressed seashells, green plastic debris, and actual fishnets, Mohanty confronts the realities of modern pollution.

“Different rivers feed directly into Chilika,” he explains, adding that elements such as microplastics never meant to be in the water have already entered the fish, the lake, and therefore, our own bodies. Ray’s words in Odia inscribed on the sculpture sum up the impact – ‘Under its beauty, the pain burns hot’.

Rather than pushing viewers away with tragedy, Mohanty uses aesthetic beauty as an entry point. His panoramic canvases capture the shifting light of Chilika from dawn to dusk, documenting changing tides, herds of wading buffalo, and local fishermen casting circular nets as the monuments in and around the lake observe the changes.

In circular compositions, he adopts the bird’s-eye perspective of migratory flamingos arriving from the Arctic. “The net thrown by a fisherman is circular; the movement of the earth is circular; the flight path of the birds is circular.

Everything is connected,” Mohanty says. In a poignant self-portrait titled Offering, the artist depicts himself standing inside the lake with enlarged hands, holding collected wood as both a shield and a gift. Through panoramic skies and material monoliths, Counter Poetry asks viewers to pay attention to a fragile, vital ecosystem before it disappears into memory.

Counter Poetry is on view at Art Centrix Space, New Delhi, till November 20, 2026.