THE WINTER APPLE
A series created during the KYTA Art Residency
Places like the Parvati Valley, (a beautiful part of the Himalayan mountain range) can be nothing but panoramic. Grand, glorious, expansive, immense and frighteningly beautiful. And then there is Kalga. A small little village in the mountains that can only be accessed by foot. A human settlement humbled by its surroundings. Also the location for the KYTA art residency that I was invited for.
During my time there, I was suddenly aware of how our daily lives are lived in constant exchange with the views around us. Familiar or unexpected, they confirm us in our lives. The more habitual the setting the more confirmed we are.
In Kalga, though we were sheltered and safe, we were still within the vastness of the mountains, which we were never destined to truly engage with. Only admire. As I saw a brutal winter take over the high peaks, the people of Kalga prepared in their small ways. That contrast in scale was ever present. Homes with tiny rooms and beehives in their attics, modest fields of corp hiding marijuana plants within them, women up short apple trees, teasing you as you walk past, all simultaneously intimate and isolating.
The Winter Apple is a series named after the last batch of green apples that are harvested for the horses, to get them through the winter. These are the precious days before the cold arrives. When the loose ends of woven woollens are tied up and made ready, wood is collected, the hay is stacked and the fire ovens are set up in the middle of the room. As winter approached, and the village prepared for survival, thin layers of black slate used for roofing, got painted on. With childlike drawings of a small world ever aware of its grand surroundings.
![]()
![]()
![]()
During my time there, I was suddenly aware of how our daily lives are lived in constant exchange with the views around us. Familiar or unexpected, they confirm us in our lives. The more habitual the setting the more confirmed we are.
In Kalga, though we were sheltered and safe, we were still within the vastness of the mountains, which we were never destined to truly engage with. Only admire. As I saw a brutal winter take over the high peaks, the people of Kalga prepared in their small ways. That contrast in scale was ever present. Homes with tiny rooms and beehives in their attics, modest fields of corp hiding marijuana plants within them, women up short apple trees, teasing you as you walk past, all simultaneously intimate and isolating.
The Winter Apple is a series named after the last batch of green apples that are harvested for the horses, to get them through the winter. These are the precious days before the cold arrives. When the loose ends of woven woollens are tied up and made ready, wood is collected, the hay is stacked and the fire ovens are set up in the middle of the room. As winter approached, and the village prepared for survival, thin layers of black slate used for roofing, got painted on. With childlike drawings of a small world ever aware of its grand surroundings.
The Winter Apple
Medium : Acrylic on Slate
Location: Kalga in the Parvati Valley , Himachial Pradesh , India
A series created and shown during the KYTA Art Residency.
![]()
![]()
![]()
![]()
Medium : Acrylic on Slate
Location: Kalga in the Parvati Valley , Himachial Pradesh , India
A series created and shown during the KYTA Art Residency.
