The blinds running through the entire series of works in this exhibition are not mere screens, partially obscuring the “real”. They are part of that reality, part of its narrative. They ask us to look closely and from afar. They remind us that our perceptions are tied to our own position in time and space. Gold Square optically vibrates through a range in values of the blues, greens and browns comprising its alternating striations. In this work, we do not know which layer conceals which. In Glitch, a monochrome work, the layers appear to merge. The recursive themes in Thenu’s oeuvre are suggested through this painting, given his longstanding interest in the notion of the glitch.

The glitch, like blinds, speaks to the mediated qualities of vision, and by extension, understanding. In The Newsreader, the bright acrylic shades over the portrait are in stark contrast to the painting’s subject, a murdered journalist. In The White Line triptych, the visual noise reminds us of electronic media and yet retains the sense that this is a man-made glitch thereby remaining informative even as noise. To quote Marshall McLuhan’s “The Medium is the Message,” or perhaps as the book (mistakenly) ended up being t