Gallery 3
VARANASI ‘My Journey through an Ancient City’
22 July - 2 August 2026
Opening night
24 July | 6 - 8 pm
Gallery Hours:
Wednesday – Sunday: 10 am – 5 pm (please note last day of exhibition ends at 3pm)
ARTIST STATEMENT
VARANASI
For Marc Baptista, this body of work represents both a photographic journey and a personal return. Born in Bombay (now Mumbai), Marc spent much of his adult life living and working overseas. Yet some of his earliest and most enduring memories were formed travelling through India alongside his father, a documentary filmmaker whose curiosity and powers of observation instilled in him a lifelong appreciation for the richness, complexity and wonder of the country.
Of all the places he encountered, Varanasi left the deepest impression.
Returning almost fifty years later, Marc found a city that seemed simultaneously transformed and unchanged. Ancient yet immediate, chaotic yet contemplative, Varanasi revealed itself as a place where past and present exist side by side. Here, the sacred and the everyday, the eternal and the fleeting are woven into the fabric of daily life.
The photographs in this exhibition are not intended as documentary records, but as personal observations. They reflect Marc's own exploration of the city, shaped by curiosity, memory and a desire to understand. At every turn he encountered acts of devotion, ritual and spirituality. Yet he was equally drawn to quieter moments: a gesture, a glance, a pause in conversation, or the simple rhythms of everyday life.
Working primarily in black and white, Marc sought to move beyond the distractions of colour and focus attention on form, light, texture and emotion. He deliberately avoided familiar visual clichés and instead approached Varanasi with a spirit of observation. The resulting images seek to capture not only the city's physical beauty, but also its character and spirit, the pulse of life, the weight of history, and the resilience of the human spirit.
Each image became a reflection on devotion, mortality, renewal and the passage of time. Together they form a personal chronicle of return and rediscovery, where the city itself becomes a metaphor for memory, identity and belonging.
For Marc, Varanasi is more than a place. It is a city that connects memory, identity and discovery. These photographs are an invitation to pause, look closely and share in that journey.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Marc Baptista is a Melbourne-based photographer, visual artist, filmmaker and creative director whose work explores the relationship between people, place and memory.
Born in Bombay (now Mumbai), Marc spent much of his adult life living and working internationally. His early experiences travelling throughout India alongside his father, a documentary filmmaker, fostered a lifelong fascination with observation, culture and visual storytelling.
Originally trained as a fine artist, Marc holds Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degrees from the San Francisco Art Institute and a Graduate Diploma in Animation from the Victorian College of the Arts. His creative practice spans photography, film, design and digital media, drawing on more than twenty-five years of experience in visual storytelling.
While his professional career has encompassed filmmaking, animation, design and creative direction, photography has remained a constant and deeply personal pursuit. His work is characterised by a strong sense of composition, an appreciation of light and shadow, and an interest in capturing moments that reveal shared human experiences across cultures and places.
Varanasi represents a return to both place and memory. Captured over multiple visits to one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities, the series explores themes of devotion, impermanence, identity and belonging through intimate black and white imagery.
Marc's work invites viewers to slow down, observe closely and discover meaning within the fleeting moments that often go unnoticed.
Varanasi is Marc's first solo photography exhibition. Further work can be viewed at www.marcbaptista.com.