Covid Times Chakravyuha

Covid Times Chakravyuha (2021) is a visual labyrinth born of crisis. Painted during the height of the pandemic, this 48 x 48 inch acrylic work channels the anxiety, disorientation, and inner resilience of those uncertain months. It belongs to the Ephemeral Atmosphere Collection, which captures fleeting emotion and atmospheric intensity through abstraction.

The title draws from the ancient Indian war formation “Chakravyuha,” a spiraling maze that is nearly impossible to exit once entered. Here, it becomes a metaphor for entrapment — the psychological spirals of isolation, fear, and adaptation that defined the Covid era.

The painting itself is a controlled storm: circular forms collapse inward while jagged lines push out. Muted greys, bruised blues, and streaks of crimson echo both internal pressure and societal fragmentation. There is no center, only motion. No boundary, only breath and contraction.

In its thematic urgency and compositional tension, this piece recalls the energy of Julie Mehretu, whose abstract works construct layered maps of sociopolitical trauma and movement. Like Mehretu, I aim not to document, but to distill — to turn overwhelming emotion into navigable form.

Covid Times Chakravyuha isn’t just about the virus. It’s about how we moved through it — or failed to. The painting captures that inward spiraling sense of time, that yearning for clarity, and the strange beauty found in survival. The atmosphere doesn’t settle. It pulses.

This work is a monument to confusion — and the art we made inside it.