Art To the Fore

“I love colour. My image comes to life in colour. I work a lot with oils,knife,brush,acrylics and lot of portrait paintings in a very contemporary Indian style,” she says. Take her painting Green World for instance: a couple sits together in a gentle embrace,shrouded with the thick overhead foliage — an idyllic scene. “It’s a painting of an idealised world. A simpler world in which a couple could sit together,holding hands. That world is fast fading and we’ve moved from simple contentment and romance to violence,” says Subramanium,who also expresses her love for flora and fauna by superimposing images of animals of plants in her paintings.

Zharotia has been trained under professor Jai Zharotia,an eminent Delhi-based artist and her father-in-law. Her art,which has won awards in India and in France,is more textural,with ink and wash depictions. Her collection houses several series of paintings,each based on a theme,such as kettle or clowns. She uses the car theme as a metaphor for materialism. “Ritika’s work is very contemporary but also has an old-world appeal at the same time. And her art is very intricate; it can take ages to make a single line,simply because it has to be so precise,” says Subramanium,who has curated pieces from each of the four artistes’ collections for the group exhibition.

Whereas Midha’s charcoal art combines the modern and the ethnic in her charcoal work,Gandhi works with clay,creating sculptures based on modern themes and ideas. “I am an artist experimenting with materials,expressions and even different styles,” says Gandhi,who teaches ceramic sculpting at her studio and at FLAME School of Liberal Arts.

“Our styles are so distinctive,you will recognise each one’s work on sight,just as if it had our handwriting on it,” says Subramanium. The artists will host a live demonstration and an audience interaction on October 20 at 8 pm.

The works will be on display at Malaka Spice till October 31