Rithika Merchant's 'The Dreaming Realm' Opens at Galerie LJ in Paris

Hybrid creatures with raptor heads, insects, stars, and all-seeing eyes populate the surreal, symmetrical tableaux of Rithika Merchant, whose solo exhibition The Dreaming Realm runs at Galerie LJ in Paris through November 21. The Mumbai-based artist builds each fable-like scene around elemental forces — earth, plants, fire, water, and the stars — stressing both volatility and strength, while figures in flooded or erupting landscapes perform enigmatic ceremonies of cooperation and determination. According to the gallery, Merchant draws on theoretical, historical, and iconographic sources, notably the idea of empirical experience grounded in sensory perception, the Greek concept of Kairos as a way of questioning the subjectivity of time, and research into the Beguines of the Middle Ages, a lay community of financially independent Christian women who sometimes practiced mysticism and whose communities survive in parts of western Europe. Symbols of consciousness and transformation recur: the luna moth signals intuition and transition, the raven wisdom, foresight, and a bridge to other realms. Communality anchors the paintings, particularly in Merchant's ongoing Interspecies Care series, which the gallery describes as centered on social organization, interdependence, reciprocity between species, and knowledge sharing. The work channels collective environmental anxiety alongside hope for healing.