Delhi
Strings and Strands:
Story of Passion Flower and Fragrance
10th – 15th January, 2023
“Tumi ki jano tomar jhumko jaba gaache phul phutechhe?”
Do you know (that) your passion flower vine is blossoming unusually? …. Chandana overheard her mom Reba Hore softly murmuring to the passion flower woody vine in the garden of their quiet home next to serene Santiniketan. “Mom was as if telling this to my father while she addressed the blooming vine that he had planted and had kept nurturing till he left for his heavenly abode,” whispered Chandana evoking nostalgia. That soft murmur is deeply etched in her heart since then. That moment was full. It reminded her of her mother’s voice, her eyes, her yearning, her tears, that gleam of bliss in her eyes, those soft sunrays piercing through her tears. That moment contained sun rays warming up the ruffling green leaves and fragrances of purple, scarlet, red blossoms of their garden.
That moment had colours that Chandana saw in her mother’s abstracts, and in her mother’s strong character. That moment of total recall reminded her of her mother’s steadfast support despite vicissitudes of her father’s life, her father’s simplicity, his etchings, water colours, figurative, bronzes, his empathy, his steadfast choice to side with those who suffer, his illness, his quiet retirement, his daily cycle trips to the local market to hunt new species, flowerings and fragrances for their garden. That one simple moment has remained sacred and has become eternal for Chandana. It is full to the brim with epic emotions. That one moment is the entire strand.
It is the story of passion flower which is indeed worth telling. And Chandana’s paintings and sculptures narrate that story. Each work is inescapably and vividly yet invisibly stringed with another one in her metaphorically charged vocabulary. That one moment of soul-to-soul exchange that her mom started with the passion flower vine has become transcendental for Chandana, a tricenarian then. Born in 1964, Chandana was a blessed child who grew up in Santiniketan seeing both her parents, Somnath Da and Reba Di, the legendary artists of the country’s pre-modern period, work. She quietly observed Somnath da tirelessly create that iconic Durga mural outside the wall of graphic department of Kala Bhavan, Santiniketan when she was barely a tween. She organically sipped in and absorbed much more from both the unpretentious and pious souls to become the simple person and the reclusive artist she is today. Chandana’s works may appear spontaneous and simple abstracts. However, her works are complex testimonials containing multiple layers of her insights and inklings. Her works record her meditational and spiritual broodings.
Her grief, her melancholy, her nostalgia, her joys, her memories, her festivals, her spirit, her parental love, her devotion, her isolation, her fear, her fight and her will to overcome — everything that has ably elevated Chandana to a subliminal existence is in her works. Her works are a product of liberation she experiences when she creates cascades of colours and complex labyrinth of motifs, metaphors and patterns on her canvases. The amalgamation of contrasting and complementing shades creates compelling yet calming compositions.
Large splotches of bright yellows, ochres, oranges, reds, vivid blues and greens explode on her canvases. On one hand, Chandana’s works have thematic semblance to that of Somnath’s as her works also are an attempt to find solace in nature and are also often inspired by the sacred bond between the mother and child. While on the other hand, she has organically inherited the textural richness of Reba’s techniques and compositional balance which is evident in her soul stirring creations. To sum up the story of passion flower, Chandana’s works are stuffed with the substances that dreams are made of … Everything that is intangible including –passion, fragrances, memories, love and pain; hope, fear and despair — becomes tangible in her canvases and sculptures.
“My sculptures are also inspired by ‘the passion-flower-moment’ of my life. They look like dried leaves or a fallen chip of a bark of a tree,” explains Chandana. Her vibrant works are themed around one strand and are connected by invisible strings and similarly are the kites flying across the sky tied to their invisible strings; Hence we chose the occasion of Uttrayan festival to showcase her work for the first time in Ahmedabad. Ahmedabad is special to Chandana. Ahmedabad for her is memories of happiness, learning novel things at CEPT studios in early 1990s and making new associations. “Ahmedabad is special to me and hence I chose to exhibit at Ahmedabad when the city is in its special festive frenzies,” reveals Chandana.
