Interwoven Realms

I paint with spontaneity and experiment with colours, layering them thickly to realise a gestural apotheosis, and in this I experience an ever-expanding sense of freedom. As large scale canvases become materials to interact with, my hands give me a sense of direction when I simultaneously feel the colours, the canvas, my body. Sometimes, I use cards, floor wipers and cardboard to apply pigments and create broad furrowing lines, different textures.

Dhanashri Deshmukh

Abstraction in Dhanashri’s works anchor deep within her mind and experiential repertoire to bring to the surface mere glimpses of her lived experiences. In some of her recent works, the artist has chosen to use fabric to literally bandage the work, as if it were injured or wounded. This could be a view of how she interprets today’s world, the state of a societies which are ruptured and toggling between stability and instability, a kind of push and pull of expectations from any and every angle. The binding element of pure white holds this fragile fragmented human together, like a mummified existence of a live being, these works are more globally relevant than others, especially where wars and political, social, economic and civic unrest dominates. Dhanashri’s works begin to slowly become polemical when seen through this lens. Some of the works are held together by a thread, where the stitch could be a literal stitch of a wound or a mental one, as in a society holding on by a thread. As the onslaught of pandemics, political unrests, wars, economic dichotomies, intellectual and religious fanaticisms, take its toll on humans all over the world, Dhanashri’s works articulate these issues in the most subtle yet vociferous of ways. Dhanashri’s works throw light on the secrets embedded within any common person today, in doing so she reveals the contrasting multifarious layers of acceptance and dissent, revolt and conformity, despair and hope existing in today’s human beings. Dhanashri Deshmukh’s works become beacons of light reassuring those who are floating in life trying to find their safe, firm ground.