The film Jethro Buck’s Wild Worlds by Sarmaya is part of a December 2024 exhibition curated by artist Waswo x Waswo at the Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts. It will be screened at the show, An Alternative Contemporary: A celebration of contemporary miniature art. The exhibition will feature works that are, in the words of the curator, “relevant to issues of feminism, the homoerotic, oppression, struggle, gender, the “culture wars”, political satire, historical events, environmental degradation, and yes, still, meditation and finding the inner self via a contemplation of beauty.”
Three paintings from the Sarmaya collection are featured in Jethro Buck’s Wild Worlds. Scroll to see them in full, in their order of appearance in the film.

Image: The Canopy, 2021, Jethro Buck, Walnut ink and gold leaf on hemp paper, © Sarmaya Arts Foundation. (2022.13.1)
In The Canopy, Jethro Buck uses gold as a symbolic representation of the timeless, infinite substratum of the universe, reflecting the constant, underlying presence that transcends the material world. Like the constant background note in classical Indian music (known as the sruti), Jethro Buck says that gold serves as a fundamental, unchanging element. The trees in the artwork direct the viewer’s gaze towards the space within the canopy, guiding the focus to the light and emptiness beyond the branches. Here, gold signifies unity, while the trees represent diversity, illustrating a harmonious interplay between the eternal and the ephemeral.

Image: Wild Things, 2019, Jethro Buck, Oil and 22 3/4 ct gold leaf on Gesso panels, © Sarmaya Arts Foundation. (2019.54.1)
For Wild Things, Jethro Buck borrows and meshes together a kaleidoscope of scenes across time periods and geographies, from Mughal India to pastoral England. The painting follows a range of dynamic figures – animal and human – who go about hunting, tending to farms, or foraging amidst lush vegetation and arid desert lands. Various worlds – urban and rural, natural and built, traditional and built – flow into one another in perfect harmony. “It’s a call for reconnection, both literally, like we need to get back out there and back into the natural environment, but also symbolically and culturally,” says Buck, whose artistic practice is rooted in traditional Indian painting schools.
Dubbed “a call to something wild” by the artist, the painting is rich with meticulously rendered details. The school of fish across the painting’s lower half have scales decorated with the jaali or latticework pattern. On the zigzagging river are two delicately painted barge boats, inspired by the canals of Cambridge, where the artist works. On the bottom right, we see the figure of environmental activist Jadav Payeng. Popularly known as the ‘Forest Man of India’, Payeng single-handedly planted a forest on a sandbar of the Brahmaputra river in Assam.

Image: Tiger Leap, 2022, Jethro Buck, oil and gouache on hemp paper, © Sarmaya Arts Foundation. (2022.13.3)
This painting serves as a portal between worlds, capturing a tiger leaping from one realm into another. A vibrant rainbow tears open the canvas to unveil a cosmic expanse, as Jethro Buck describes it. The composition brings together scenes from a typical London park with towering jungle trees, blending urban and natural landscapes. The skyrise could hint at Mumbai, while the river, stretching to the horizon, could be either the Ganges or the ancient Thames, evoking a time before human presence. Created during lockdown, the painting reflects Jethro’s imaginative escape from the confines of his home. The use of Indian miniature borders adds a historical and artistic dimension, bridging the dreamlike with the real.