Stepping into Nikil Inaya’s today | stay: Passages from Hong Kong is to enter a space where time and belonging are suspended—where each canvas is not just a surface, but an intersection of memory, migration, and the tactile residue of lived experience. Out of all the works on display, one has lingered with me the most, Tears Go By, for its audacity and evocative power.
Tears Go By: Meteors, Memory, and Material
At first glance, Tears Go By is a piece restless with meteors, each trailing a streak of rainbow across a blackened cosmos. The texture is profound—oil paint layered and stacked so thickly that the meteors themselves emerge in relief. Photographically, these surfaces are a pleasure and a puzzle: macro shots reveal the almost geological build-up of pigment, where color is not just seen but felt.
In the upper right, Uranus looms, half-brushed in color and half-bleached white, as if caught between presence and absence. The painting features a meteor; although not centered, it displays a classic flame-shaped trail, drawing the eye, a singular event amid a shower of passing lines. The rest are mere marks; however, each line has a brief yet beautiful existence. The painting feels cosmic in size, yet intimate. It suggests that even in a night of hundreds of falling stars, there is always one moment, one memory, that stands apart.
The sense of depth in this piece is what moved me the most, not just in the paint, but in the metaphor. What is shown isn’t simply a spectacle on a celestial scale; it’s a representation of fleetingness and endurance. The rainbow trails against pure black evoke joy and loss, the vibrancy of living against the void. Moving from place to place, never truly setting up a flag at one place, I picked up many things across the places I’ve lived, and the choice of Uranus being titled, distant, and only half-revealed, echoes my own experience of being half-rooted here, half elsewhere.
Nikil Inaya: Roots, Reflections, and the Many Stages
If the paintings are passages, then Nikil himself is the traveler—always in motion, but always carrying home within him. As I entered the exhibition, I was struck by the presence of his parents, especially his mother, a scene that mirrored my own experiences. His father, jokingly self-proclaimed “studio assistant” lightened the mood, while his mother translated titles and meanings for the extended family, shifting seamlessly between languages. I also couldn’t help but smile at the way Nikil would carefully explain the meaning or title of a piece to his mother, only to hear her simplify—or sometimes skip over—those details entirely when sharing with the rest of the family. Nikil’s ability to move between English and his mother tongue was more than just communication; it reminded me of my moments of switching languages—sometimes searching for the right phrase in English when my mother tongue falls short. An example of how our roots adapt and persist, carried and reinterpreted in every new context.
This duality of belonging and becoming is imbued in his work and his presence. The exhibition is dedicated to his late grandmother, and the sense of lineage is palpable, even as the subjects traverse myth, memory, and modernity. There’s a humility in how he shares authorship of the experience. Rather than insisting on his explanations, he welcomed his parents into storytelling, letting them translate, simplify, and even reinterpret his work when talking to his extended family. A reminder that sharing your story means letting others help tell it, too.
Diversity of Sources
What inspires me most about Nikil Inaya is not just his work, but how he refuses to be defined by a single pursuit. His website is a manifesto for creative plurality, encompassing acting, painting, directing, writing, music, dance, and more. It’s a reminder that you don’t have to pick just one path. You can be many things, and those many things can feed each other—an especially powerful reminder for someone like me, standing on the cusp of college and future choices.
As someone who has also wandered between voice acting, directing, writing, martial arts, and more, I’ve often felt pressured to choose a lane, to specialize or narrow my focus. But seeing Nikil’s success and his ability to fill an exhibition hall with the evidence of a life lived in many directions, it permits me to embrace the full spectrum of my interests. To create, to perform, to direct, to imagine: all of it matters, and all of it can coexist.
The Lasting Afterglow
Today | stay is more than an exhibition; it’s a declaration that identity is not fixed, instead it is a constellation. Sometimes scattered, sometimes gathered, always luminous against the dark. Tears Go By captures that perfectly: a sky full of fleeting brightness, anchored by one unforgettable streak. Nikil Inaya’s journey, his roots, and his multiplicity remind me that we are all, in some sense, meteors—passing through, leaving color, carrying our origins with us into every new night.
Written and photographed by Ankul Sidana
Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre, July 2025
