Like a wobbly wheel of a car, Tania Thomas’s paintings at Vinnyasa Premier Art Gallery don’t follow a definite track. There is introspection, fun and a sense of forlorn.
Titled Evolved, the exhibition chases a freewheeling mind that hops from reality to abstraction and back. Ask for the owner of this fissile mind, and Tania appears, in her calm demeanour, to elaborate on her intuitive style of painting.
“I let the forms, textures and colours evolve as I confront the canvas. None is preconceived,” she says. Imagine translating one’s subconscious thoughts or dreams into visual art. Sounds vague, improbable? Not for Tania. With playful circular patterns and geometrical lines, she brings out this floating state of mind with ease. A froth of bubbles appear like a dainty laced handkerchief on the frame. These denote the dreams — temporary and insignificant, yet carrying with them the residues of the day’s happenings.
For Tania, who was born in Kerala and is now settled in Chennai, the inspiration to paint was a follow-up of her works with textiles of varied colours, textures and weaves. This explains the rhetoric patterns, the smooth transition of colours and emphasis on designs. Most of her paintings use the earthy tones — black, brown, red, faded yellow or green. This is explanatory of her love for nature, which she considers as a perfect piece of art in itself.
“I travel a lot and during my travel I observe the small things like texture of the sand,” she says. This probably inspired her to draw the series, wherein she has the vast landscape of beach drawn, exploiting the beauty of horizon, cawing crows and sea waves to full extent. Adding to the list of inspirational things is a humble cycle, which she uses in her painting titled Post. She also uses a red seal on it, which sets the viewer on a solo ride of thoughts. Does it mean a restriction on freedom or a halt in one’s progress?
Many such fractured thoughts, which Tania records in her bedside notebook, find haven here in her paintings. A culmination of work spanning three years, this is her first solo exhibition, though her works have previously travelled places for group shows. With unrestricted thoughts and tools — metal pieces, nails, spatula or sponge, her drawings bring out a sense of liberation, and leave one evolved in the process.