Recollections: Traveling Through Time

Bangalore
based artist Bharathi S. revisits her childhood through paintings that wistfully
capture joie de vivre, of carefree days, gone by. The paintings in the
new series, ‘Reminiscences’ evoke flashes of vivid memory, of youthful days and
simpler times. The kaleidoscopic images depict a fervent memoire tinged with nostalgia
and innocence, and of those past moments that were uncluttered and unencumbered
from the urgency and stresses of urban life. The works are suggestive of the rich
fragrance of imagination and the joy of untroubled days, where time was slower,
and perhaps it even stood still, more so, in small towns and villages, where
Bharathi grew up.

Her
works are akin to photographic film negatives, albeit in color, where masses
and forms coalesce and blur, in effortless motion. The colors, as patches of
pigments, take shape from a distance, and dissolve once again on approaching
closer. Most of the larger paintings have figures of children either playing or
watching adults complete household chores – there is an inherent exuberance and
dynamism with a heightened sense of motion that is evident. A safe, secluded
world is quietly tangible.

An
avid traveler, she has been fascinated by clouds – their patterns and how they
shift form, disperse, and re-form at times to acquire newer shapes and
outlines. Their temporal nature and their transitions, have impacted her
perception, in her observations of life and events and their fleeting characteristics.
This in turn has inspired the small format paintings, which rely on abstraction
as a tool to convey the thematic subjects as they shift forms amidst the
colors, and which reemphasize the subtleties of movement and transitions.

Nalini S Malaviya

Art Critic

– Excerpt from the catalogue essay

‘Reminiscences’ by Bharathi S. continues till Nov 27, at Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore

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