Between Two Fires 2021 exemplifies Adeela Suleman’s process of overlaying found plates with deathly scenes and encounters drawn from historical artworks and stories. The imagery is based on a mid-eighteenth-century miniature painting by the Indian master painter Manaku (active c.1725–60) in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, titled The Nightmare Dream of a King: The Fearsome Aftermath of the Battle of Kurukshetra c.1740 — a painting from the unfinished folio ‘Small Guler’ Bhagavata Purana (The Ancient Story of God).

Illustrated on a large enamel dish, flying arrows and blood splatters spray across a tangle of soldiers, horses, chariots and elephants. The work depicts the 18-day battle in the northern Indian city of Kurukshetra between feuding cousins the Pandavas and the Kauravas recorded in the epic Mahabharata (also referred to as the Mahabharata War). The story is a pre-eminent example of a war celebrated and glorified in South Asian culture.