Unfettered reality of thoughts

Since the beginning of time, art has acquired various forms. To some, it appears mundane, while to the discerning eye, it is a celebration of life and a channel for expression of the artist’s creative endeavours.

For the renowned Delhi-based architect and artist Rohit Raj Mehndiratta, art is an exploration into unknown areas which allow him to express himself with unfettered freedom. The artist looks beyond the tangible, to extract the infinite out of the finite, though others may see these as weird shapes smeared together.

His first solo art exhibition in the capital titled “(Un) Fettered” opens at the Alliance Française de Delhi today evening and will then open to the public from 27 to 30 August from 11.00 am to 8.00 pm.   

Rohit Raj said, “I am trying to capture the inner reality – it has no spatial limit or concept of time. It is constantly shifting from moment to moment and at the same time urges the consciousness to find stability in the outside, the ‘other’ space. I am playing with this dichotomy in my art: marking moments and their spiritual intensity.”   

(Un) Fettered represents the artist’s desire to give form to these inner-landscapes, their co-existence and conflict with the external world and to critique the idea of the timelessness of one’s inner reality. Raj plays with the concept of space inside oneself, its constant state of motion as it moves, moulds, fuses and contorts. He seeks to “(un) fetter” this space by representing moments of time. 

By doing this, he brings the spiritual and emotional, both conflating together, into the artistic realm, to be experienced by the viewer, in their moment of time. Thus, the artist urges consciousness to find stability in the outside - or the ‘other’ space through the inner realm. By playing with this dichotomy, through various artistic means, he captures the spatial intensity of moments - otherwise confined to the inner realm. 

The mediums chosen vary from pen-ink, photomontages to acrylic on canvas. The process involves emotive moments that translate into intense sketching or pen and ink work. His work also revolves around photographing aspects of the physical realm that evokes the inside. He is currently a visiting faculty at the Sushant School of Architecture. His academic and research interests in the domain of visual urban representations and politics of urban development have led to a photographic exhibition called ‘Placed Settings’ in New York, where he explored the idea of identity and the city through photography paper presentations in a number of international conferences and published paper in Sarai Reader 09. He recently co-edited a monograph titled “The Structure: Works of Mahendra Raj” published by Park Books, Zurich.