On canvas, colours from a global palette

For Bangladeshi artist Vinita Karim, every opportunity to exhibit in India is a manner of homecoming. First spotted by a Delhi-based gallery, she has seen a steady interest in her works by other galleries, notably the Gallerie Ganesha and the Gallerie Nyva in Delhi.

In Dhaka, her home state, Vinita has been a regular attraction at the Dhaka Art Summit, where her installations, acrylic works and sketches have kept visitors riveted. At her most recent show at the India Art Fair, the story was much the same.

A committed colourist, her works are a riot of reds, pinks, oranges and yellows, giving her canvas space an unusual brightness. Used by her to define the closely packed geometric forms that represent the habitations of a densely populated city — rising tier upon tier from ground level — the works immediately bring to mind the state of unplanned growth gripping our cities.

An angle of novelty and a perfect relief to the density is the introduction of needlework, adding her own signature to the art. “The colouring of the embroidery is determined by the colours of the acrylics,” she explains.

But not all her canvases are filled to the brim. Across the lower expanse she infuses serenity as she depicts the flowing of a river in pristine blue or white, thereby reflecting the dichotomy of life.

Though a technical way of balancing the canvas, this touch of warm colours in contrast to the white is a connection to real  riverine landscapes that are distinguished with such landmarks.

The impact of the void also integrates her abstract landscapes with meaning, and provides a parallel study of the facets of human life.

Besides her paintings, this versatile artist has captured attention through fibreglass sculptures of colourful eggs, which bear the stamp of geometric division. Below these stylised forms, Vinita instills a mirror, symbolic of the reflective process of water as an anchor of happiness. The reflection of the geometric habitations in them appear like the many entanglements of modern-day living.

Speaking of her art process, Vinita vehemently states, “I never sketch before I take up the brush. This is because, when I was a student in Sweden, I was made to sketch nudes endlessly till I reached a point of saturation. I feel the spontaneity of thought and execution is lost by me with this intermediary process.”

The embroidery in her art, a link with the subcontinent for handwork, is a special domain carved out by women.

Having experimented with materials such as muslin, kantha and other needlecrafts to create her riverscapes, she says these inputs not only express her sensibilities, but also become sources of conversation with her viewers.

Talking of the many influences that have shaped her art, Vinita, who was born in India and has travelled with her diplomat parents globally, confesses to having several mentors.

They range from artists in Libya to the iconic ‘red’ artist in Egypt, to those in the Philippines. All this and more makes her artistry a representation of an art form that is rooted in her birthplace, India, taken across to her married home in Bangladesh, and then embossed with hints of influence spanning the globe.