Her ‘Journeys’ whisk you away to the buzzing commute hubs dotting the globe: from the throbbing Bahnhof in Zurich to the teeming railway stations in Mumbai. The cluster of pulsating points of departure make a surreal emergence in her virtual exhibition. Mumbai- based artist and philanthropist Akshita Gandhi decodes the hidden inspiration between layers of paint in her riveting artworks.
Each of Akshita’s creations comes complete with complexities, contradictions, and layered learnings, with movement being the leitmotif. “When we think of home, we tend to think of a place of birth, or any destination that is static. I was searching for a place where I belong. I spent so much time around trams, trains, planes, constantly arriving and departing, in a new place every other month, in an incessant search, running away, hungry for a revelation…that I was moving constantly, and hence was naturally drawn to and inspired by movement,” explains Akshita.
Her exhibition, ‘Journeys’, is about finding one’s own self, amalgamated with concepts of reality, myth and emotion. “My existential metamorphosis that began in early 2018 made me realise that my home has always been inside me all along. It took me 11 trips around the world, showcasing and creating art, to realise that in reality, I have belonged to myself and will go back to dust: that is when concepts of mythology began to creep up and shape the silhouette of this series and my personal growth as an artist.
Mixed media interplay
It is a fascinating interplay of mixed media with geometrics. “The golden ratio and Vitruvian man left a great impact on me, and I understood the importance of proportion. Experimenting with different mediums has certainly broadened my horizons,” says Akshita. Though when she started out, monochromes formed the central grid in her works. “I used to find it cumbersome to include colour in my art. Even the photographs were sepia.
Shilpi Madan for Sunday Herald