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An Abstract artist who fathomed the infinite nature
Nasreen received worldwide recognition only after her death and is now known as the ‘First Indian Woman Abstract Artist’. In her short life, she traveled to many countries, had contact with many senior artists, and was influenced by some of them, which helped her develop her unique style.
Fathoming the immeasurable nature
Nature is immeasurable,
It is beautiful and indescribable,
It surrounds us,
Yet its vastness goes beyond us.
We too are part of nature.
If one wishes to find oneself,
One needs to explore the nature around,
And lose oneself within it.
That way, one can discover oneself…!
Painting is nothing but the best tool for self – discovery through discovering the immensity of nature!
In the exhibition, ‘The vastness again and again’, one gets to experience such a journey of a painter named Nasreen Mohamedi. The exhibition is currently housed in the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation (JNAF) gallery at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) in Mumbai and will be open to the public till April 30th.
The exhibition presents important milestones in Nasreen’s short life of 53 years, the steps she took, the development of her artistic style, various painting mediums she handled, and her deep visual contemplation. The exhibition has been expertly curated by Ms Pooja Vaish, Director of Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation (JNAF). In her introductory note, she quotes Nasreen’s poetic phrase which captures the essence of Nasreen’s art – “In utter chaos, a thread of discipline – a cobweb.”
To comprehend the secrets hidden in this mysterious book of nature, one has to begin with familiarizing oneself with the language in which it is written. This process begins by identifying the alphabets of that language. What are these alphabets? The answer is forms in nature. And the space within which these forms are contained. The script of this language is formed from the ever-changing interrelationships of space and forms. Once we begin to comprehend that script, we are enabled to express that which cannot be expressed in our usual language of words, and we begin to understand what we normally don’t understand. This is the visual language. It is not constrained by space and time, because this is the language of painting. It also includes light that visualizes forms in space, and colors that embellish that light, but they come later. Forms are fundamental. They are also known as abstract forms.
Fundamental Research on Abstraction
While experiencing this exhibition, one may wonder why, among the many paintings here, there are only one or two paintings with a splash of different colors. Those who like to see colorful paintings may rather get disappointed here. Most of the paintings here are in deep black and some in grey, because these paintings are fundamental research on the language created by the interaction between form and space.
What method did Nasreen adopt for her research? The answer to this question may not come easily to us just by experiencing her paintings. But it can be slowly understood due to a very coherent arrangement of the exhibition by Pooja Vaish, which included photographs taken by Nasreen at different places, observations made by her later, notes of the visual thinking in her diary, visual experience she took and the abstraction she made from it, methods used while doing it, and the basic alphabets of shapes which she discovered. For instance, among the photographs she took, one photograph is of a tiled roof. It does not capture what kind of building it is, whether it is a house or a temple etc. All we see is the triangular shape of the roof tapering into the open space and the vast sky that surrounds it. This is the first step in her visual research. This is where the abstraction begins. What we see next is a geometric structure with very sharp triangles drawn in black ink on the paper. It is no more a roof, no building either. What is seen in front of our eyes is a triangular shape floating in the abyss. It is basic research done on visual language.
After connecting it all together, we can see the relationship between the original photograph and the painting. Obviously, making this connection and assuming that the artist would have done it that way is only an afterthought. It is difficult to say with certainty that it would have happened that way. Because most of her paintings are not dated, not even titled. It is difficult to say whether she did this on purpose or not. But it is not possible that Nasreen, who drew the most minutely accurate drawings and wrote notes about them in her diary, and who used modern drafting equipment with great precision, would have forgotten to put her own name and dates on all her drawings and paintings. She might have had some thought in mind for not giving captions to the paintings. Maybe she didn’t even consider these to be paintings in the traditional sense (in the sense of a work of art created by a painter). Maybe she considered this as her own personal research. Perhaps she thought that what she was finding was timeless and beyond words, so she didn’t give it a title and a date?
Perhaps she would be thinking that she was not creating anything new, just uncovering something that was already present in nature, so she did not even want to write her name as the creator of these paintings? But such questions remain unanswered. Looking at her works gives an idea of her journey as a painter. Her journey as a painter has a lot to do with her actual travels and the many influences that have come upon her.
Nasreen Mohamedi: Voyage and Inspirations
Nasreen Mohamedi is world-renowned for her line drawings. Today, she is considered one of the most important contemporary Indian artists. Over the past decade, her work has been noted internationally. Her work is currently displayed at three locations in New York: the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Talwar Gallery, as well as at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) in New Delhi, and various other famous art institutions in Germany like the Documenta.
Nasreen received worldwide recognition only after her death and is now known as the ‘First Indian Woman Abstract Artist’. In her short life, she traveled to many countries, had contact with many senior artists, and was influenced by some of them, which helped her develop her unique style.
Nasreen was born in 1937 in an elite Bohra Muslim family in Karachi. Her father had a business of photographic equipment in Bahrein. When she was very young, her mother passed away, and in 1944, her family moved to Mumbai. Later, she studied at the Saint Martin School of Arts in London for three years (1954-1957). After that, she went to Paris for three years (1961-1963) for further studies with a scholarship.
She was fond of photography since childhood. As her father’s business was related to photography, she got opportunity to handle the best sophisticated cameras as well. That helped her develop photography skills. Later, she used this skill very well to record the observations of nature which is necessary for painting. This was ahead of the time, because at that time photography didn’t have the status of art.
Many of her photographs are displayed in this exhibition. These photographs may appear naïve, but she has captured the essence of the subject in her pictures. When we see them, we are reminded that everyone has an advanced mobile camera in their hands today, but does everyone have the vision to capture the intangible in a tangible form like Nasreen did?
The contemplative approach of Nasreen’s painting process, meticulous notetaking, and the process of abstraction is reminiscent of the contemplative style of senior artist late Prabhakar Barwe. He used to write copious notes in his diaries in the form of verbal descriptions, sketches, and poems of visual scenes that he had noted in his daily life and these notes would later create his paintings. These notes led to creation of his renowned book ‘Kora Canvas’ (Blank canvas).
After returning from Paris, Nasreen entered the Bhulabhai Institute for the Arts in Mumbai. There, she met senior artists such as Gaitonde, Hussain, and Tyeb Mehta. She also became friends with the renowned painter Jeram Patel. While she received guidance from all of them, their influence on her work didn’t overshadow her work because Nasreen had always developed her work independently.
Nasreen’s work is often compared with the work of Agnes Martin who was an important artist in the world-renowned ‘New York School’ group of abstract painters which emerged during the 1940s and ’50s. However, Nasreen had no such influence because she was not aware about Agnes’s work. However, Nasreen has mentioned having been influenced by two leading Russian painters, Kasimir Malevich and Wassily Kandinsky. The great artist Paul Klee also too had an influence on her work.
Nasreen had been influenced by Sufi compositions due to her stay in Bahrein. This may be a reason why her diary entries presented in this exhibition seem to approach spirituality. The lines in her drawings are believed to be influenced by design styles from Islamic architecture. Her work is also believed to be influenced by Zen Buddhism. She may have been influenced by Zen meditation after meeting Gaitonde. Her paintings of those times and Gaitonde’s paintings seem quite similar to each other. This is evident from the arrangement of paintings in this exhibition.
Nasreen was also influenced by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and Pandit Ravi Shankar due to her fondness for Hindustani classical music. She loved knitting. A handmade cloth bag designed and hand-crafted by her can also be seen in this exhibition. Later, from 1972, Nasreen started teaching fine art at the famous Maharaj Sayajirao University in Baroda. In a short while, she became a popular professor among her students. But unfortunately, in her mid-forties, she developed a fatal neurodegenerative disease. Her body was crippled by it, but she was able to retain some control over the hand movements necessary for painting. That made working possible, but it was difficult. Even in such a situation, she composed some works using drafting tools, that required great accuracy. Later her illness became severe, and she passed away in 1990 at the age of 53.
While leaving this world, she left behind her paintings. And she went back into the vastness of nature from where she had come, without signing any of her paintings. This pioneering Indian woman abstract artist shall forever be remembered by the world.
- References:
- The website of the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation (JNAF) is where one can view photographs of the paintings exhibited in this Mumbai exhibition.
- The website of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. On this website, one can view photographs of Nasreen Mohamedi’s paintings from their collection.
- The website of the Talwar Gallery in New York. On this website, one can view photographic reproductions of Nasreen Mohamedi’s paintings from their collection.
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– Vineel Bhurke
About the Author: The author is a self-taught artist and student of Art.
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