Artist’s Statement

My current series is based on varied interpretations of land-spaces and boundless intricacies of nature. The botanical world with all its foliages and floras, is often infused as an important component to my compositions.

I grew up in the ’70s and ’80s, amidst the sylvan, rustic surroundings of Santiniketan or the Abode of Peace, established by the 1913 Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore. As a result, the bounties and wonders of nature have all along stimulated and inspired my creative sensibilities. Natural spaces, both physically and metaphorically continue to help me seek the equilibrium between my objective self and the subjective interpretations of our very life in this planet. In the last few decades, I have been living and working in a very urban environment in the city of Kolkata, India, where I continually witness the ruthless destruction and eradication of nature, since India has jumped on the bandwagon of globalization. The resultant feeling of longing for a natural harmony that’s disappearing fast, ultimately gives shape to my current body of work — through a process of critiquing the degradation of nature and ecology all around us. The paintings emerge from this eco-spiritual yearning in a narrative manner with a self devised medium, using acrylics, color drawing inks, oil pastels, etc. Through this art-making process, and perhaps also due to my background of doctoral work on landscapes in Indian miniature paintings, my stylistic format has increasingly been leaning towards the ornamental elements of Indian traditional paintings. I have reinterpreted some of the intricate border decorations found in Mughal miniatures, in my work. I attempt to contextualize them with contemporary concerns of urban expansion by means of well laid out maps and related signs and symbols.

Artist’s Bio

Sohini Dhar received her Bachelors of Fine Arts degree (Painting, 1983), Masters of Fine Arts degree (Painting, 1985) and PhD in History of Art in 1992, from Visva Bharati, a university in India, founded by the humanist-poet and 1913 Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore.

She has taught art and art history at university level at Visva Bharati, Shantiniketan and at Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata, India, where she has been serving as a professor of art history since 1995 and served as the Dean of Visual Arts for five years.

Since the 1990s, she has presented her papers in numerous national level seminars and symposiums on art and art history in India. Her essays and articles on traditional as well as contemporary paintings in India have been published in over twenty-five scholarly periodicals.

Her paintings are in important private and public collections in India, Singapore, South Korea, UK, Germany, France, and New York, NY.

Dr. Dhar’s paintings are closely connected to her love for nature. Visual Voyage, her present series of land arrangements, may be interpreted as mindscapes, where the association of form, line, and color gets intermingled to develop an intimate dialogue with nature. The intricate details woven throughout these paintings effortlessly guide the viewer through a poetic journey into the natural world. The layered richness of colors and textures found in the details of this series, connects them to India’s rich heritage of miniature paintings. Such juxtaposition of thoughts and ideas ultimately attempts to re-create a kind of spiritual space, leading to an eco-spiritual aesthetics of body and soul.

For more a detailed resume go to: SohiniDharResume2012