Zen Forest unfolds from Satish Gupta’s understanding of life as a field of constant movement - at times luminous and expansive, at times quiet, dark, or forbidding. The work emerges from his reflection on existence as a forest of moods, where light and laughter coexist with stillness, uncertainty, and depth. For Gupta, this shifting terrain is not to be resisted but inhabited. To move with life, rather than against it, is to recognise its many states without fear.
The installation takes shape through vertical, tree-like forms that rise with quiet insistence, their surfaces carrying calligraphic inscriptions and weathered textures. Copper and metal bear the marks of time, oxidation, and contact, while stone grounds the work in weight and earthbound presence. The repeated verticals establish rhythm, evoking a forest that is alive, irregular, and breathing. Material here is elemental. Each surface registers duration, exposure, allowing the work to exist as both structure and environment.
Zen Forest unfolds around the figure of a meditator whose presence is not solitary but expansive. The meditator is both form and condition - an awareness that permeates the forest itself. The forest becomes a lived metaphor for existence, where divinity is not sought elsewhere but encountered within the act of being present. Meditation here is self-initiated, arising from within rather than directed outward. Light and darkness pass through the space as subtle shifts within the same continuum. In this forest, presence is shared, and the meditator is never alone.