From life to canvas, all about love

Ritu Gupta’s solo exhibition Empowering Love opens at the Open Palm Court of the India Habitat Center on the 1 July 2013.  Beginning as a self-taught artist, Ritu’s development as an artist has been possible purely because of her passion to paint, decorate, explore and express. 

Her paintings demonstrate the influence of the traditional art and culture in a style that is very much her own.  One has to note that the stream of Indian culture paintings and its message can largely traceable in her paintings. Though the works are her way to explore and understand Indian tradition, they begin to reflect the artists understanding of childhood, masculinity, femininity, union and desire.

The current series of works is called Empowering Love, the journey is no longer sharp and steep. One can see the artist settling down into an understanding of human form heavily inspired by the supple slenderness seen in the medieval Indian styles ranging from Chola bronzes, to Kangra paintings. However a key feature to note is that the artist does not seem to be making a school or style centric adaptation. 

Instead one is reminded of the early 20th century Bengal revivalists and their understanding of an authentic (traditional) Indian form in terms of being soft, supple and feminine (as against the hard(er) masculine  European understanding of human body. This series is devoted to the romantic (divine) love of Radha and Krishna, which in no way is explicitly referred to in iconographic terms. The reference is implicit and subtle. 

The artist does away with traditional iconography and instead chooses to focus on the mood of lovers. This series is has very close references to the late Guler and Kangra school not so much in treatment of foliage, moonlight and the romantic mood.  

Yet again, she makes traditional narrative her own and by now begins to show a certain mastery over the understanding of the human body in compositional and design terms. Her urge to play and appropriate takes over again and she focuses of backgrounds, detailing and decorative motifs.