A huge, dull gold sculpture of an angel atop a sphere greets you when you enter the gallery at the IF.BE. at Ballard Estate. You see the sphere as a concurring element later in the small and big paintings and sculptures, installation across the room. This is an exhibition by Nandita Chaudhuri.
“I see all human beings as balls of energies,” says Nandita Chaudhuri, the British artist of Indian origin who trained at Slade School of Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Camberwell College of Arts. Not to mention that she also has an MBA from Westminster. “That’s the reason they keep appearing in all my works - in paintings, sculptures, holograms,” she adds. “I have made these balls into 3D holograms.”
You see these holograms behind the sculptures. While one is just an angel flapping wings, the second one is a film of these spheres. “I have titled them Soul Connections. One of these balls becomes the protagonist. Other balls are connected… when one ball comes and hits the other, it may grow small because it is hurt, or the other balls are putting you up because you are a celebrity, the ball becomes bigger and bigger. This is like any human relationship – people applaud you, pull you down and you get impacted.”
How do holograms work with sculptures and paintings? “I am glad you asked me this,” says Nandita. “Whatever my concept idea is, it flows from medium to medium. I have my head in the cloud with a certain thought process and I would not like any medium to take hold of me. I want to use all different kinds of mediums. Because every medium allows your work to come out in different ways. When you add them all together, you get sensory experience that you wouldn’t get when each is used individually,” she shares. My thoughts want to use 2D, 3D, water, space, metal, iron, canvas like I am conducting an orchestra – yahan se piano baj raha hai, yahan se symbal, wahan se violin… it’s like creating magic. My dialogue continues from medium to medium.”
Nandita believes that creativity is limitless and cannot be bound by rules and mediums. Especially with the advent of new technology. “Technology has given such a huge canvas. You can express creativity in such varied ways now. The options are limitless – poem, painting, hologram, sculpture. One needs to explore everything and use it express your own creativity instead of blaming technology for own drawbacks.”
For an abstract painter, Nandita has definitely broken all shackles and boundaries with her expressions. The exhibition has paintings on canvas, drawing paper sharing space with fiber sculptures, a fiber installation, animations of her own paintings, short films (NFT) and digital spheres. It is an immersive experience.
In her paintings, Nandita uses a mix. On the drawing paper you can see she has used poster colours, water colours along with oil and acrylic. You see oil and acrylic paint together on canvas as well. “They say you should never use oil and water together. But my work comes from breaking all these rules.”
The sculptures are titled Formless Free. They are angels on a spherical ball. On the top of the ball is the torso of an angel with massive golden wings and lotus on its head. “The lotus signifies positivity and goodness,” says Nandita “I feel that every human being is good. I see goodness and God in everybody,” she adds.
“I firmly believe that I am formless, and that I am completely free. It runs through all my work. Freedom, to me, doesn’t mean doing what you want. It means you are free from the judgements of the world like being, small, big, short, tall, ugly, beautiful… you are one with God.”
Nandita also writes poems and the book was released on the first day of the exhibition. “Book has got 150 poems, metaphorically written, and are an extension of my paintings and sculptures. About human connectivity,” she informs.
So what is Nandita? “I am predominantly a painter – A cutting edge contemporary abstract artist who believes in human energies and connectivity and breaking boundaries,” concludes Nandita Chaudhuri.
