Not All Black and White

White spaces dominant her abstracts while gold, turquoise and greens play the significant other.

In her Gurgaon studio, many of Eva Maria Pacheco Ricote’s canvases rest flat on the floor. “I can’t dry them against the wall, the paints will flow out of the canvas,” she says. Varnish, dry golden powder, and flowing turquoise paint do the talking in this room as they settle down on the white canvas. The white space will be left as it is, Pacheco doesn’t feel the need to cover it up. Originally from Barcelona, the artist has been in Delhi for close to five years, and her third solo in India, titled “In the Light,” is her way of paying homage to the spiritual headway that she has achieved through meditation.

On an art scholarship in Mexico about 15 years ago, Pacheco found herself in the eye of an existential crisis. A search for answers led her to a meditation centre run by Brahma Kumaris in Barcelona, and the rest, as they say, is history. A yoga practitioner for over 14 years, Pacheco holds a PhD in Fine Arts. She grew up watching her father, contemporary American artist Pedro Pacheco, paint.

Black was a colour that dominated her canvases. But, ever since she began Raja Yoga, the artist found herself using less of the colour until finally, she doesn’t use it anymore. As white spaces play a dominant role on her abstract works, gold, turquoise and greens play the significant other. The dialogue of these colours with white, “releases her from the cocoon of dust and routine.”

“What you see on the canvas is an extension of the energy that vibrates in me. The flow of paint on canvas records that vibration and energy. So if someone likes one painting more than the other, it is because his vibration and energy matches that painting’s that moment,” she says.

The show is on at Instituto Cervantes, 48, Hanuman Road till November 30.

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