Shilpa Nikam

CARTANART REVIEW:

Shilpa Nikam
The Poetics of Space
Seemingly reserved in her speech, artist Shilpa Nikam’s works harbour distinct narratives about nature and the experiences she chooses to reveal through her abstract works. Her
solo show in Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai captures the viewer’s consciousness and what ensues are long conversations with the multi-layered, polysemous works, reviews
Sushma Sabnis. The contributions that Art has made to the world would range from tangible material gains to aesthetic, spiritual and cultural enhancement of the human race. Art has also nurtured the genesis of an array of artistic temperaments, from the introverts, extroverts to the salesmen, intelligent slicks and conmen. If ever an artistic temperament has been an apt complement to the art created, it has been the soulful, reticent type. Artist Shilpa Nikam’s abstract paintings reflect her countenance and are such silent and eloquent conversations with the world. Born in Jaffrabad, Gujarat, Shilpa Nikam is a J J School of Arts graduate with a BFA and MFA in Painting. One would instantly sense the elegance and hints of melancholy in the art works; melancholy not in a negative sense, but a prior knowing of things which could evoke any response and consequence. Much like Mother Nature, who bides time in tolerance till it is time to restore balance. While Shilpa’s works are classified as abstracts, several known and unknown forms appear and disappear leaving faint memories in the visual. Sharp small circles stencilled on to the canvas, lines and geometric shapes frequent the canvas. Also present in the works are apparitions of forms, shaped like no cognizant shape but distinctly visible. These unidentified auric forms seem to move around and explore the surface of the canvas freely as intended by the artist. In one such painting, there are two of the auric elements grouped into a corner of a space. They stand out in the composition like shadows of people in a space while the object creating the shadow is invisible. This could also be a reflection of the reserved artist’s personal negotiations in a public scenario where she probably would prefer to be harmonious and comfortable in her space with the freedom to interact and participate at her own free will and not because it is a social norm or etiquette. This could be applied to a larger canvas of life as well, as these forms could depict a political place holder of thoughts or opinions on issues concerned with the world. Here the artist hints at blurring the markers of the personal and the public transforming the art works into incisive polemics in a language she has devised. Shilpa’s works denote a strong belief in the sacred feminine. Though they are not overtly feministic, the works exude a feminine ethos. This could be attributed to the artist’s faith in Nature. Most of the influences in the works have been by Nature in a veiled, nuanced subtlety. When asked how she goes about her process of making a painting, the artist reveals that her process as such is highly intuitive and instinctive. Though as an artist she does retain control in the choice of palettes, medium, primary thought which urges initiative action, she believes elements and compositions are largely intuition led in her abstract works. This alternating control and resignation seems to emerge from her works as well. Most of the canvases are divided into clear cut spaces, with each space expressing its own personality. In some of the works her experiences in print making show up, where paint is peeled off the surface to reveal inner spaces. This renders a two dimensional painted surface to three dimensional, enhancing its depth. Spatulas of opaque paint cover up the surface alternated with broken colour ‘windows’, opening up liminal spaces within the canvas. In some the divisions into spaces are not stark lines dissecting a work, but merely suggested by using textures, free form and geometric shapes. The canvas appears to have demarcated spaces, and the textural layers seem to create cuts, openings, windows and odd shaped insights in the work, adding to the narratives. This has a semblance of sharp sun rays penetrating dense foliage, creating moving patterns of intense light and dark shadows on the ground. If one were to call these the ‘eyes’ of the painting, the viewer would see the soul of the work through them. Shilpa also has displayed some of her earlier works made in water colour on paper. Here, the influences of Nature are stark and open to the viewer to interpret such as in her work from the earlier series on ‘mud pots’ also rendered in water colour on paper, the whole concept of the earthiness of an earthen, earth shaped pot, representing all the four natural elements which made it, earth, water, air and fire, and the human interaction with it, from creating it, drinking from it to becoming one with it with the end of a life, is articulated. Coming back to the palette Shilpa chooses to use could seem like a surprise because, in spite of the works being influenced by Nature and abstract depictions of it, the colour green never appears in them. This deliberate denial of a cliche puts this collection into a different light. The artist also chooses to use a medium like oils, but the colours mixed are chosen from the traditional shades and hues made from vegetable dyes in Madhubani art. This blending of the traditional with the contemporary engages the viewer visually, further intensifying the dialogue in a transient space created between the two.