Suryakant Lokhande’s #EveryDayIsCheatDay explores Disney nostalgia and consumer desire at ICIA Gallery, Mumbai

An arresting communicative of everything, something, and thing (not needfully successful that aforesaid order) invites viewers astatine Mumbai’s Institute of Contemporary Indian Art (ICIA) Gallery into a fascinatingly off-kilter bid of 10 artworks by modern creator Suryakant Lokhande. The solo exhibition, titled #EveryDayIsCheatDay, by AstaGuru Auction House and ICIA, contextualises the thematic undertone of Samuel Beckett’s absurdist play Waiting for Godot done a ocular grammar that is striking, nostalgic, colourful, and animated.

Using Disney characters — from Uncle Scrooge to Mickey Mouse — Suryakant stages an illusion of allure that pulls viewers backmost to the 6pm Disney Hour, a dopamine-rich tv staple of millennial childhood. What initially appears astir therapeutic — a reminder of bully times — dilatory mutates into a blameworthy pleasance (think surface clip stretching past homework and slumber deadlines), earlier metamorphosing into a garish carousel of tendency and aspiration. The works evoke ticketed rollercoaster rides astatine Disneyland, privileges contingent connected question visas and a coagulated slope balance. An interior dialog unfolds arsenic the spectator engages with the aesthetics connected display.

In 1 artwork, Uncle Scrooge and his 3 grandnephews — Huey, Dewey, and Louie — are shown measuring wealth. In another, they are clad successful safari suits, navigating jungles inhabited by elephants and tigers. Elsewhere, a treasure thorax appears with Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and Goofy astatine the forefront.

Suryakant draws from Beckett’s existential intermission and transposes it into the epoch of scrolling, consumption, and dopamine. “Godot, typical of a content strategy oregon superior knowledge, has been replaced by the algorithm. Waiting is nary longer inactive oregon boring; it is noisy, colourful, and endlessly entertaining. Disney characters correspond planetary puerility nostalgia and mass-produced fantasy. I usage cartoon-like figures not to notation circumstantial characters but to evoke a shared ocular memory. They go symbolic figures — guiltless connected the surface, yet placed wrong scenarios of indulgence and absurdity, reflecting however phantasy and depletion merge today,” helium says of the works produced betwixt 2022 and 2025, during a play of adjacent reflection of mundane indulgence, repetition, and modern societal behaviour.

Detached from their archetypal narratives, these cartoon characters relation arsenic taste masks. Abundance successful Suryakant’s works is not presented arsenic accomplishment but arsenic ambiance — of excess, indulgence, tragedy, and comedy. The figures stay perpetually engaged — collecting, posing, resting, celebrating — yet their actions consciousness suspended successful repetition, recalling Albert Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus, successful which meaning and consciousness look arsenic Sisyphus descends the elevation to retrieve his rock.

In Suryakant’s works, this looping theatricality suggests a quiescent hostility betwixt enactment and stasis, spectacle and emptiness. Rather than offering overt critique, the creator mirrors the logic of modern depletion backmost to the spectator done exaggeration and ocular excess.

“I chiefly usage concern enamel overgarment connected canvas, sometimes combined with metallic pigments and mixed media. The shiny, polished aboveground mimics the artificial gloss of advertizing and luxury culture. The ocular connection relies connected agleam colours, repetition, cartoon imagery, and exaggerated surfaces. These elements reflector the connection of advertizing and entertainment, wherever tendency is amplified and perpetually repeated. The compositions look playful but are structured to suggest overload, stagnation, and saturation,” helium adds.

#EveryDayIsCheatDay yet presents modern beingness arsenic a signifier connected which pleasance is endlessly rehearsed — abundant, performative, and softly unresolved. The artworks beryllium that meaning successful the absurd is not elusive; it simply refuses to execute for philistines.

Artworks, priced upwards of ₹3 lakh, volition beryllium connected show astatine the ICIA Gallery from February 9 to 14.