A Thread of Truth

Mahajran always brings a rich conceptual framework to all of his collages. This series expands on the idea centered around the notion of “shunya,” or nothingness, represented by letter O. He invites us to consider that everything comes out of nothing and dissolves into nothing, the idea, which exists in Hindu and Buddhist philosophies and parallels one in quantum physics. Combined with the idea of foreverness, these works invite us to see how we can approach these notions through several perspectives. Scientifically, forever is an impossible, futile notion, but we want everything to last forever, so emotionally and psychologically we do experience and feel it; forever exists in our inner world.

With this new body of work, Maharjan take his unique techniques to a next level. He still works with the same limited material, paper and the 26 alphabets of the English language. He employs his usual methods of cutting letters out of found book-pages and gluing them in predetermined symbolic forms, piercing the paper around letter O, cutting out strips of text, and combining/reforming them in new shapes, but this time many of the works are much more sculptural and three dimensional. For example, piercing with needle at an angle pushes paper to certain elevations and makes it more sculpted or 3D, as seen in The Map of Heaven. He weaves strips of cut pages to create new surfaces and textures, as seen in The Music of Eternity, The Nuns’ Tale, and A Thread of Truth, which gave the title to this show.

Exploring the emblematic and literal meanings of O representing the shunya, or nothingness, the three works The Theory of Nothing, Principles of Mahashunya, Nothingness to Everything come from the same book. The text’s legible and meaningful information on nothingness is cut out and then dissected into smaller dot-like parts, or points, which make up everything and at the same time mean nothing. Thematically and conceptually similar, these three works complement and complete each other.

To Being Again is a proper triptych that explores the notion of meaning making. The three pages are the same page of the same book from different physical copies of it and look dissimilar because the O-s are connected in a different way on each page. With this work, Youdhi explores how meaningful connections in our mind shape what we see; they originate from us, not the other way around.

In The World of the Buddha, we see very structured connected networks between O-s that form three layers. The innermost consists of two pages, the middle three, and the outer four, thus going outward, expanding interconnected world, structured like a crystal, which embraces nothingness and everything. In contrast, Reflection on a Life is made of four layers, each layer made up of one continuous line, cut out methodically and gracefully, that floats in repeated loops, connecting all the “O”s. The fragile lines entangle and intertwine themselves, and in the process of their growth, lose their beginning and the end, where time is a circle. The paths of life, all leading to “O.” Nothing. Sunyata. Life’s journey without purpose or destination. Meaningless and futile. The journey is the purpose, and the meaning is in the journey. Celebration of the process of living. Reflections on life. Reflections of life. Constantly in motion, never constant.

Speaking of tangles, In The Nun’s Tale, Maharjan uses the thinnest possible strips of cut pages and weaves them tightly together. He admits that he had a few mistakes and fixed them, but did not hide the rips and played with the extra paper that came out loose. In A Thread of Truth, he also exposed the flaws and celebrated them instead of making the work flawless, revealing the fragility of the process and the material.

In a highly symbolic and literal work, The Weight of Silence, all of the cut out letters from the pages are fallen or pulled down, as if driven by gravity.

In a set of fifteen pages, The Music of Eternity, the artist finds music (nonsensical noises) in his monotonous and mundane processes. Manipulating meaningful letters and syllables into illogical notes, Maharjan transforms informational language into visual music, and in the process, reminds us how music can be found in everything and everywhere, even in the language of the machine world, 1s and 0s.

It is possible to liken his meticulous labor to ancient artisans’ work in book illuminations. They too worked with texts of the books by crafting distinct intricate worlds within, so that anyone who would look will discover new dimensions to get lost in and to acquire their unique interpretation.

Text by Elena Pakhoutova
Curator, Rubin Museum of Art, New York