“It’s a flat land, without mountains. You see fields stretching into the horizon. The vast skies and horizons became part of my subconscious, and they still influence my work,” Maharashtran artist Yashwant Deshmukh, hailing from Vidarbha speaks of his homeland and its impact on his artwork.
Deshmukh recalls being drawn to drawing from an early age. “Even in school, when others didn’t have drawing as a subject, I was making pictures on the wall,” he tells TMS. Later, he joined Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai, one of India’s most prominent art institutions. “Before entering J.J., I had certain dreams. But when I was there, I realised art is not only about realistic approaches. I started to see differently, to develop a visual language that felt like my own.”
In college, the artist began drawing objects around him — jars, bottles, curtains. “I realised the change was important. It was not about stories, not nostalgia, but about visual memories,” he remarks.
The exhibition, ‘Horizons of Memory’, on view at Delhi’s Art Alive Gallery, puts the artist’s long journey into the spotlight. His canvases, textured with doors, crevices, gradations of tone and light, turn familiar forms into meditative abstractions.
The artist uses a soft, subdued palette of colours, often depicting irregular, random shapes, which helps strike curiosity in the viewers’ minds. In one of the artworks, titled ‘Home - 1’, Deshmukh draws a five-storeyed home, using acrylic marble powder and pencil on canvas. Whereas, in ‘Breeze’, he paints a hexagonal structure in light pink against a grey background. A curved, striped shape has been drawn in the middle of the hexagon.
“My process begins with drawing,” Deshmukh says. “I sketch every day in my notebook. From there, some drawings evolve into paintings. As I work with colour and texture, each square inch becomes defined. At some point, when the visual feels right, I can feel an emotional connection building with it. That is when I know the artwork is complete.”
Sunaina Anand, director of the Art Alive Gallery, describes the exhibition as an exploration of “quiet yet evocative interior worlds.” The exhibition will be on view till September 30.