The title ‘mirage’ refers to a place that can be seen from afar but never quite reached – like a hallucination, a chimera or a phantasm. Kalpesh Lathigra’s melancholic longing for such a place brings the artist into dialogue with memories of Mumbai, the city he calls his spiritual home. What inspired these recollections, what triggered the longing? Are his memories delusions or a special kind of inner connection?

Lathigra, whose family migrated over the course of three generations from India to Great Britain via Africa, addresses questions of identity, homeland and origin in his work. Mirage combines portraits with still lifes, landscapes and scenes of urban life. Lathigra’s visual concepts are characterized by a multitude of evocative motifs in which light and colour merge to create a complex ambiguity. Abstract and narrative pictorial elements invite the viewer to various interpretations.