Three women artists take a line for a walk

When three women artists decide to explore the many moods of abstraction just by the lines they carry, it can actually cast the viewer as an interloper whose aesthetic instincts have but gently stirred, while offering a thoughtful meditation on the nomadism of the present day contemporary artist. At Shridharani Triveni this was an exhibition to behold.

At first sight, these works by three equally distinctive and wonderfully sensitive artists come across as an engrossed, neo-minimalist sojourn, hovering rather cleverly on the border between textural nuances and formless foundations rooted in the spirit of being. After all, any journey in abstraction is an exercise that virtually swims in the orbit of palettes – but when it brims on the qualities of imposing physical presence it mirrors experiential journeys.

Artist Nerada uses pencil on paper and acrylic on paper as her medium. For her, "Details create the big picture". In her works, any kind of expression is kept to a minimum, in order to give the work a completely literal presence and to allow the viewer an immediate, purely visual response.

Paper and charcoal provide a unique degree of responsiveness to Gitanjali and hence have been an ideal medium of expression in her works. The artist has a subtle symmetry generated by rhythmic movements in creations and this is what is interpreted in her drawings.

Ritu Mehra, an engineer turned artist considers the creative process as a means to meditate about transience. Her medium is all about mixed media on canvas and travels between nether worlds with consummate ease.

Contemplative Connections

All three artists abide by the different connotations of tranquil conversations and contemplation when they create your works. Geetanjali talks about her conception and states, "While conceiving my artwork, at the substratum lies a subconscious yet sure movement from the Gross to the Subtle. A certain arrangement and repetition of pattern and imagery is used to create rhythms that provide solace to the viewer, somewhat as different notes of sound do in music." For her allusions of listening to symphonies in the genre of Western music create a matrix of illusions. While it is the resonance caused by vibrations that are mirrored in her geometric articulations that give us a deeper sense of a movement towards infinity. Even when she creates the thread like nocturnal strokes there is a clear indication of the auratic symbolism of vibrations that surround it.

Ritu melds the figurative along with evanescent colour fields. For her the creative process is an inner pathway to her own sanctum sanctorum, this is why she says: "When I create I think of my connection with my 'self'. The perception of 'self' as part of nature, environment, society, cosmos, creation etc. However, essentially it's not a conscious attempt to think of the connection but a spontaneous happening that creates the vision of the human form amidst that large perspective of the cosmos."

Neerja whose works looks more like tensile tendrils explains: "It's the present stream of thoughts and emotions that connect me to my work. I am attracted to the tiniest part of an object and love to enlarge and see various details, layers, which I try to depict on paper from my point of view."