Auckland based painter Laxmi Jhunjhnuwala’s work is clearly inspired by the deep bonds she maintains with her mother country. Her paintings and installations capture the essence of the unique sensory experience that is India, complete with the myriad colours, textures, and yes, even smells and flavours that imbue the the many strands of the country’s cultures.
“Given my Indian heritage, my work brings with it traces of history, culture and spirituality. Always inspired by eastern mythology and modern western concepts, my art practice has become an amalgamation of the two.
“Using a festive colour palette not only offers a cultural identity but brings with it a sense of life and activates the surrounding space,” Laxmi said on the eve of her solo art exhibition, titled “Rangkavita” or “Song of Colours”. The exhibition, which opens on June 9 will run until June 22 at the Mairangi Arts Centre on the North Shore in Auckland.
The bold, vibrant colour that Laxmi employs fills the environment with joy and happiness and generates a positive aura. “This pure aura or energy provides the opportunity to transcend all limits. It has no beginning and no end and no edges or boundaries,” Laxmi says, explaining the philosophical and mystical thought that forms the leitmotif of her canvasses.
“It brings viewers to have an experiential encounter with the work. As Zen philosopher and author Alan Watts says, ‘Pure art speaks from soul to soul’. The simplicity in my work leaves it open to interpretation and is more powerful than a direct message.
“The more you complicate things, the more you lose. In renouncing you achieve more,” she adds quoting another philosopher, Wolfgang Laib.
“As an artist I have limited or no control over creative events. I just participate and create conditions and let nature take it course. The pigment or paint is free to perform according to its free will. The pigment or paint moves and sits according to their material qualities making the final image,” Laxmi says on how this philosopher’s thought of “letting go” underlines her technique.
The artist goes beyond the use of colour in her work, employing other elements of the multi-sensual experience that is part and parcel of life in India, by using a plethora of materials that not only capture Indian culture’s kaleidoscopic culture but also its feel, smells and flavours.
Explains Laxmi: “I am interested in the notion of materiality in the physical, philosophical and theosophical senses. I am exploring materials like paint, pigments, plastics, wood, turmeric, chili and flour, to create an ecstatic vision that overwhelms the viewers with a sense of mystery and emotion.
“The natural materials and pigments transcend themselves, rendering meaning and experience to the viewers. Turmeric and chili sprinkled on the floor fills the space with a lingering aroma playing with the viewer’s senses whilst bright colours engage the viewer’s eyes.
“There is an urge to explore, to touch, to view closely and to solve the mystery encapsulated by the work. The experience of the viewer becomes the main aspect of my work, making it meaningful and giving essence to my work.”
Laxmi is as much a thinker as she is an artist – a fact that clearly emerges in her personal descriptions of her installations. “They are a conversation between the ideas of the ephemeral and the permanent. One is about the tactile experience where one has the desire to touch the pigment and physically experience the work. While the other is about the visual experience, where given a few moments in front of these seductive works; the spectator is inevitably drawn by fleeting intangible moods.”
“The Perspex contains or shields the pigment from the touch. I am also interested in the relationship between the reflective hard surface of the Perspex, which captures the bouncing light and transitory images of the surroundings and the viewer experiencing the work, whereas the matt porous, delicate and fragile pigment on the floor creates pulsating evanescent expressions.
These bodies of work are about revealing the universal truth about the material, journey and celebration of life, she says, quoting a verse from the ancient Vedantic text Mundakopanishad: “From joy springs all creation, by joy it sustained, towards joy it proceeds, and to joy it returns.”
RANGKAVITA ‘Song of Colours’
Solo Show by Laxmi Jhunjhnuwala 9-22 June 2011 Exhibition opens 9 June, Thursday at 5pm at the Mairangi Arts Centre, 20 Hastings Road Mairangi Bay, Auckland 0630 Gallery Hours 9.30-4pm Mon-Sat