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Notes: Once upon a time ... might be the most appropriate way to introduce one of the dream-like compositions by Manjit Bawa. Like most fairy tales, Bawa's paintings reflect the universal themes of love, peace and joy and the fear of losing them in what sometimes seems like a very alien existence. Bawa's works usually begin with an undefined setting represented by an infinite field of monochromatic color, completely devoid of extraneous details including foreground and background. This field formally serves as a means to balance the composition by stabilizing the central subjects, most often a figure paired with an animal, while also serving as a universal beginning ...in a land far, far away ... from which a story is born.

The subjects of Manjit Bawa's works are unidentifiable except in their inherent uniformity. By extracting symbols from Indian mythology and conflating gods like Vishnu and Shiva, Bawa establishes a new repertoire of contemporary icons. However, instead of portraying the never-changing condition of human existence as most icons do, the artist portrays the human subconscious - the capricious fantasies, desires, and fears mined from memory and imagination. In this work ...a princess and a panther lived together in harmony ... social hierarchy is disrupted and idealism rules. But like most fairy tales there is imminent danger threatening to disrupt the utopia. This imminence is suggested by the visual dilemma created by the split figures suspended in space. The artist himself has acknowledged painting as a catharsis from the dangerous and violent world around him.

If the function of the fairy tale is to "awaken our regard for the miraculous condition of life and to evoke profound feelings of awe and respect for life as a miraculous process, which can be altered and changed to compensate for the lack of power, wealth, and pleasure that most people experience" (Jack Zipes, The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm, Norton Critical Editions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 2000, pp. 848-9), then the function of the artist is not to bring us happily ever after to the end ... but to iconify the contemporaneous now by acknowledging the realities of socio-political oppression but also the enchantment of human existence.