THINGS ARE NOT AS THEY SEEM | MANUJA WALDIA

Pulp Society is pleased to present Things Are Not As They Seem, a solo exhibition by Manuja Waldia, marking her debut in Delhi.

In this body of work, Waldia reflects on desire and the strange position we occupy within it, as both participants and, at times, powerless observers. Her paintings draw us in through familiar images of luxury, beauty, and cultural icons, but beneath their seductive surfaces lies a quieter unease.

The works gesture towards a larger backdrop shaped by ecological collapse, conflict, and a growing sense of spiritual dissonance, conditions tied to systems of excess, individualism, and constant consumption. While individuals are often made to feel responsible for these crises, the structures that shape and sustain desire remain harder to locate, and even harder to confront.

Taking cues from Plato’s Cave, and the endless scroll of social media, Waldia builds a visual language that moves between illusion and intimacy. Glossy, advertisement-like images sit alongside moments of memory and love. Through the meticulous and slow process of oil painting, every image becomes a psychological landscape, dissolving the boundary between what is culturally constructed and what is deeply meaningful to the individual.

At its core, the exhibition asks: if our inner worlds mirror the collective, what might we uncover by paying closer attention to what we desire?