‘Hidden Geographies’ by Sharmistha Ray

Here’s a quick look at the wonderful by Sharmistha Ray at Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, Mumbai:

In ‘hidden geographies’, the artist postulates canonical ideals of beauty and the sublime, whereas in a small-scale painting ‘Tsunami’, she captures the force of that "wave" in the formal construction within the picture plane, rendering it spatially expansive.

Another work of intimate proportions ‘Orange, Rising’ uses color as a starting-point of the investigation into spatial construction. A central orange ‘figure’ is flanked by amorphous forms, whose edges dissolve on the verge of concretizing into form. In paintings like ‘Til Death Do Us Part’ Sharmistha Ray tackles immensity of scale. It’s a diptych which spans 10 feet from edge to edge.

The two panels in it are rendered almost identical, but with gestural differences. In contrast to other works from the series, the artist explores a shallower space in this painting, using a dual color under-painting as the tonal base and building upon it with the inter-positionality of three colors - blue, white and ochre - on a unified spatial plane.

‘The Sublimation of Desire’ is a triptych that extends across 15 feet - references historical styles like Impressionism (Monet’s garden at Giverny) and Post-Impressionism (Van Gogh’s intense color and paint application). The three panels manifest continuity and yet flux. The image recalls a French or English garden, but the application is process-driven. The underlying metaphor for desire is evident in the rich, cadmium reds that peek out from just below the surface.

By extension, the feminine psyche and the synergistic tension between actual (physical) and imagined (fantastical) desire are the impetus forForbidden Pleasures (2011). More loosely this painting ties into the notion of the Garden of Eden and the forbidden fruit (rendered in the painting as the repeating alzarin crimson element). The entire painting is an amalgamation of marks and gestures, of paint directly out of the tube, poured or dripped on, that construct a final image of a garden.