shivani garg

from The Blue Lotus magazine issue 51

by martin bradley

quetta recollected

Minimalism

Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis

By: Hiranya OM

This ‘tangram art’ depicts the modes of urban landscapes

Brief: Based on the theme of urban landscapes, abstract artist Shivani Garg presents her solo exhibition ‘Transiting Space’ in Delhi. To be held at Triveni Kala Sangam, the exhibition will showcase the ever-changing surroundings in the form of geometrical figures. The change is shown through the concept of duality.

Concept Note: The word landscape forms a beautiful image of nature in our mind. Mountains, rivers and lush green surroundings are a part of that image. However, for abstract artist Shivani Garg, the word holds a different meaning altogether. She sees the same beauty in her surroundings, not in the solitude of mountains but in the fast-paced life of metro cities. The concept of capturing a scene within a city is called urban landscape. The beauty of urban landscapes inspired her so much so that she has dedicated a new series of her artwork to the same concept.

Bringing alive the series through her upcoming exhibition, ‘Transiting Space’ at Triveni Kala Sangam, the artist wants to highlight the dual nature of the landscape. The duality she talks about is referred with construction and destruction. The infrastructural growth of cities in terms of roads, buildings, blocks and technology is adopted as construction and the degradation of the environment as destruction. Some of her works in the exhibition also showcases mapping art.

In her work comprises of the maps, she has used lines and texture to bring alive the space elements such as planets and galaxy. While in urban landscapes, Garg talked about construction and destruction, here in mapping, she wanted to align the elements she has used. The alignment of objects in space signifies a balance and harmony in the environment.

For 36-year-old artist, the idea of duality, as referred to urban landscapes, is relatable to the whole existence of this universe. Good-bad, life-death, black-white and thus, construction-destruction. The wholeness of this concept coincided with the artist and becomes a motivation for her to produce a series around it. However, being an environment lover, she chose the theory of alignment in mapping art.

To convey the expression, Garg is using the geometrical language. Her love for geometrical shapes started seven years ago when she was playing with her daughter. A game of tangram changed the course of her artsy journey and she has been using the various geometrical shapes in her artworks since then. The art of conveying through geometrical language stand her out from the rest of the artists.

Garg believes that the success of an artwork lies in the perfect blend of its elements and principles. Her belief is boldly visible in her series of ‘Transiting Space’. Each stroke of her colour on the canvas highlights detail and thus engages the viewer in a dialogue. Even while using the high and low range of colours, she ensures to maintain a balance between tranquillity and turbulence into all her works. For one of her works which depict the distortion of a monument, the artist has used colour coordination of white and blue to bring the effects of debris. For a window, she uses a net of acrylic to tone down the hues of light and colour and raise the quotient of realism.

To make her series colourful, vibrant, bold, serene and yet transiting, the artist use all sorts of medium. She has brought alive the idea of construction and destruction with the use of mix-media. Acrylic, charcoal, paper, texture and the splash of

Isometric

colours are her euphorias.

The surroundings are her biggest inspiration but she also derives inspiration from artist like Paul Klee, Yogesh Rawal and Henri Matisse. Klee’s influence is clearly visible in Garg’s work. He was a Swiss-born activist who was affected by the movements in art such as Expressionism, Cubism and Surrealism and one can vividly see the effects of neo-expressionism in Garg’s artworks.

There are multiple layers such as time, space and place through which Garg conveys in ‘Transiting Space’. The layers showcase the historical references from the era of Matisse to a geometrical abstraction of Russian artist, Kazimir Malevich. Matisse was a French artist known for both his use of colours and fluid. Malevich had a profound influence on the development of nonobjective or abstract art, in the 20th century. Both Matisse and Malevich can be found in the layers of Garg’s work.

Being an avid traveller and a sharp observer helps Garg to understand art better. The minute architectural detail on different landscapes takes away her attention and stem into an artwork with the splash of her colour palette. Her artworks compel the viewers to contemplate the significance of the colours and figures used. There are several perspectives to conceive her artworks— aerial, cross-section and isometric, individually or all at once.

A graduate in fine arts and jewellery designing, Garg always had a fascination for lines, shapes and sizes. Since childhood, Garg had an artistic bend but she has adopted it as a profession recently. The successful solo shows verify her understanding and love towards art. Like she always says, my life, my art!