Empathy, emotions brimming from the heart – Smriti Dixit's latest solo show, Whispered Continuum, at Art Alive Gallery in New Delhi, is awash with these. Coiled and knotted intricacies in the sculptural installations also come alive in monochromatic palettes, mostly in red, black and white.
Dixit considers red a most powerful colour, symbolising power, passion, love, violence, pain and everything that symbolises strength; it’s an artist's boon and curse. But are red and black installations with a tinge of white on display also tapping into the festive mood with Christmas around the corner?
The artist says, for her, the colour speaks of the struggles of an artist, sometimes because of a passion felt deep. The shades of red expresses nuanced reflections on the cycles of growth, decay, and renewal that define both nature and human experience, she adds.
The beauty of the ordinary
Dixit’s works on display till January 5 are imaginative recreations of sensations and memories. The artworks reflect her deep personal connection with nature, and the inspiration from the coastal flora near her home in suburban Mumbai. “It’s a celebration of the beauty of the ordinary. I understand how rare it is to be ordinary today. I like to describe my work as an array of different wavelengths that capture the essence of germination. Things don’t simply appear in nature — they germinate slowly, taking the time they need,” she says.
The life-size installation in the gallery of a tree, is a recreation of a tree Dixit saw each day on her way to work in Mumbai. As the years passed, the tree’s grandeur did not diminish, but a construction project obstructed her view. In the installation, the artist has used pink and white knitting to depict its flowering and her memory of it. “'The fact that an installation looks like a blossom to you and it's the same memory that inspired me to create it, connects us,' says Dixit. The power of shared experience is important for her.
Preserving moments
Every project of hers is about sustainability. Textiles aren't fast fashion for her; they are a way to preserve a moment. In an era of fleeting moments, Dixit holds on to her fabrics like a museum of shared time preserved in glory. For her, fabrics are like humans; she says they age in a similar way. They adopt a smell and have a feeling of their own that we call texture, very similar to any human organ.
“It all started from a middle-class mentality of saving money on art materials and making the most of what's available”, she says. Life in Mumbai shaped the artist in her. The packed colonies, the smell of mogra flowers merging with that of fish in the markets, and the typical Maharashtrian household placing gods in the kitchen inspired her to create art out of these fragments. Clothes used in the pooja ghar, price tags, old clothes, and discarded sarees, are also part of that journey which continues in changed form, shape and size. This exhibition, too, is created after recycling all materials that she used in her last solo show. It took her four years to craft the current installations.
Describing the process of creation, she says that an artist feels everything too much. “From 1995, the process of coiling, weaving, and stitching fabric and found materials has been both meditative and transformative,” she says.
Sunaina Anand, founder-director, Art Alive Gallery, says Dixit’s body of work reaffirms her deep engagement with materiality and her medium. “As textile art gains momentum in the global art circuit, her body of work becomes increasingly relevant, initiating conversations around human experiences and their intrinsic connection to nature,” she says.