Contrast is an artist’s most powerful medium. Textile designer Bharti Prajapati’s show uses bright, vivid portraits of happy rural and semi-rural women in traditional finery to convey her message. Set against the stark landscape of the concrete jungle of urban India, Prajapati’s Earth Story conveys her deep understanding and appreciation of rural women, and the rural landscapes and sensibilities in oil on canvas.
The exhibition recalls the underhues of the great Thota Vaikuntham.
Like the master, the pastoral is Prajapati’s palette, her women dark-skinned and traditional in paintings done in earth colours. But the similarities end there. Bharti’s women have elongated necks and limbs. They preen in ethnic jewellery and textiles unique to Gujarat.
Why are there only women on the canvases? “Unlike single-track lives of men, the lives of rural women are multi-layered as they deal with family pressures and their own personal desires and aspirations,” says Bharti. The exhibition attempts to unravel the connection of the five elements or panch tattvas to one another and to life and creation itself.
The artist is certain that Indian art, design, culture and traditions celebrate the five elements in Nature: Prithvi, Jal, Agni, Vayu and Akash. As a tribute to women of bucolic Bharat, Earth Story equates them to the eternal female force or Shakti, according to this alumnus of the National Institute of Design. Talking about the artist, gallery owner Gitanjali Maini says, “As we turn 18, it is only befitting that we exhibit a solo show by one of our most valued artists.” Art and artists become noticed when they address issues. Earth Story tells it as she is.
When & Where Earth Story Venue: Gallery G, 38, Lavelle Road, 7th Cross, Bengaluru
Till: February 29