I am Alakananda Mukerji, and I grew up on the River Ganges. I have long since left the narrow streets of Benaras where life is awash in a flood of color and a constant stream of souls. Yet however so far I may find myself from those ancient riverbanks, my memory, my art, and indeed my very being — these are forever caught up in the notion of endless, sacred flow.
People and faces, the surge of sounds, the unfathomably old commingling with the untarnishedly new — all the rhythms and rhymes of India: this is the wellspring of who I am. I flow from this source, but I have become the river — changing, evolving, flowing. And what flows from me, my painting, it is often a conversation between the me that was and the me that is becoming. Memories, media, materials — bits of canvas, pieces of the past — anything I can get hold of: this is my art. I am the medium. I am the flow.
The subtle tones of Europe, and the soaring spirit of America: these flow in me too, for in these places I was also educated, alongside rivers with strange-sounding names like the Aliákmonas, the Thames, and the Mississippi. These are part of me now and I am part of them. And I am changed, though my wellspring stays the same. For I am a river, and a river is process. Art is process. Life is process.