Thieves in the Forest by Varunika Saraf is a reproduction of her large watercolour painting on Wasli, a painting material from 10th-century India. Multiple figures throughout Saraf’s forest, which measures almost three meters wide, represent our collective complacency. “It is not immediately apparent if they are the oppressed, the oppressors, or spectators bearing silent witness” to the transformation of Indigenous lands.

Saraf has said the watercolour symbolises “every forest where human greed plays out.” The artwork portrays development as a euphemism for repression, violence, mass displacement and extraction of natural resources “leading to deep humanitarian and ecological crises.”

Varunika Saraf (1981, India) is an artist and art historian based in Hyderabad, known for her large-scale paintings on Wasli. Inspired by Eduardo Galeano, who implores us to search for the keys in history to explain our time, Saraf's works draw on various archival sources to engage in a conceptual dialogue with the present.

Saraf has a PhD in Visual Studies from the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Exhibitions include: the Sharjah Biennial 15 (2023); Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai (2021); Heidelberger Kunstverein (2020); and Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts, New Delhi (2019). Fellowships include: the Charles Wallace India Trust, Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge and the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (both 2012).

This artwork is part of a series of limited-edition artworks on Indigenous creative resistance, curated by Ché Zara Blomfield for Progressive International. Proceeds from the sale of this artwork go towards Progressive International.

Thieves in the Forest is a numbered limited edition of 100
Printed on 189 g/m matte paper 24” x 18” (61 x 46 cm), frame not included. 

Paper thickness: 10.3 mil (0.26 mm)
Paper weight: 189 g/m²
Opacity: 94%
ISO brightness: 104%
Paper is sourced from Japan

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Meets the small parts and magnetic flux index level requirements.
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