KOCHI: Inspiration can strike at any moment from anywhere. For Ambily, a homemaker-turned-full-time artist, that moment was when she visited St Mary’s Church in Dubai. The light that transformed a stained glass window twenty-two years back set her on a new path — an artist that works on glasses.
“Growing up, my dream was to be a homemaker. I aspired to raise children, who would give back to society. But the minute art found me, I realised that it was possible to balance two worlds at once — a creative inner space and family,” she says.
Each of her intricate mosaic pieces reflects this very sentiment. She transmutes her inner world onto the canvas made of glass, giving rise to a myriad of fragments harmoniously uniting to form a cohesive whole. Her work entitled ‘Ecstacy of Love’ captures the porous nature of self and relationships through lines and colours. Her work takes weeks and almost months to plan, as there is no scope for erasing and starting over with this medium.
Her work is also born out of moments of intense emotion carefully tempered on fragile glass. “Working on glass, a risky medium, is incredibly cathartic to me,” she says. “In the kingdom of glass, everything is transparent and there is nowhere to hide,” says a quote that accompanies one of her paintings.
Ambily’s works are now displayed at her solo exhibition titled ‘Liquid Form X’ at Durbar Hall Art Gallery. The show will conclude on July 10.