Metropolitan - Anup Mathew Thomas

The current Gasworks exhibition takes its name from a new series of works of Anup Thomas. Fourteen photographs depict fourteen Episcopalian leaders in India dressed in their official robes and in front of their official residences. Although differing greatly from one another, both the clothing and houses tend to be full of colour, pomp and luxury. Thomas' photographs scream with the contradictions inherent in their positions as religious leaders, their imagined congregations and the situations in which they themselves live. Another series, Light Life, 2005, is a digital slide show of 'ladies bars'. The bars faced forced state closure on the pretext that they encouraged crime and prostitution, although the vacuous, empty rooms pose the question of what professions the dancers may have been driven into by their very closure. Thomas' work here is lush and rich and subtly focuses on the paradoxes inherent within the superficial and cosmetic arbitrations made by the rich, the decision makers and leaders of society.

RL