Manisha Parekh’s latest show, ‘Spinning Secrets’ at Nature Morte (September 11thto October 16th, 2009) continues to integrate and expand on the ideas and visual imagery that the artist has made her own over the years. When the viewer walks into the gallery, the first thing that strikes her is the precision with which the works are displayed, focusing her attention in an order, in fact, that enables the viewer to look at the works in a focussed precise way, as opposed to random viewing. This should come as no surprise, of course, for this is the artist’s fifth show with gallerist and curator Peter Nagy and her third in this particular space. The display too seems to acknowledge this relationship between Parekh and Nagy, clearly defining the fact that both agree on viewpoints and sensibilities.
In his essay, Nagy writes, “Again we are brought back to the play between the static and the kinetic, the precise moment of knowing and the long gaps of indeterminacy. Manisha Parekh’s artworks make no attempts at representation, feign no mimesis, stands as substitutes for nothing other than themselves. Self-prophesised and confident, they ask to accept the parameters of their making and acknowledge their internal absolutes.”
While the exhibition spins no secrets to those who have been following her works down the years, there are added dimensions that take her abstracted forms towards greater contemplativeness. Parekh’s deeply personalised artistic language has evolved steadfastly ever since she first picked up her scissors to create an origami of patterns. Over time, those patterns overlapped ever so gradually to create, in various instances, a field of blushing red poppies, swaying in the winds, or the contours in the present suite, of the infinitely more solid contours of a beast, elephant-like in its proportions. The long years of snipping the cut-outs have honed her skills and Parekh has now mastered the art of shaping the translucent sheets of paper expertly to achieve a rare perfection, an ability to mould transient shapes that seem either to glide airily, filled with the lightness of un-being or, alternately, take on the gravitas of more primeval forms weighed down with solidity.
Also on display at the show was Parekh’s more recent foray – graphite drawings led to a series of miniature works. These comprise a personalised vision of trapped landscapes and intricately detailed abstractions of astronomical diagrams. Of a near-meditative nature, these miniature works occupy quiet corners of space, offering the viewer standing before the drawings, a moment of total isolation, almost. In contrast to the frozen vistas are sets of sculptural three-dimensional projections textured with tautly wound jute ropes. Parekh recognises in this armature an inspiration of Gandhi’s spinning wheel, the simple activity of self-dependence that came to symbolise his larger fight against the Raj. These reliefs are arranged against the walls of the gallery, bringing to mind calligraphy in Braille, standing like a metaphor for change.
Abstracted organic and geometric surfaces built with dabs and daubs of paint form another series of gouache works. In a range of blues that move from deep to pale shades, the artist captures what would seem like vistas of underwater life. The process of nurturing the defined shapes, Parekh says, felt like ‘walking on the surface… steps moving in random directions’ until the construct of the composition emerged. The bold large works embedded with red-tasselled stubs entitled Pomegranate Bloom impressed in the way it incorporated a sense of transience in aboldly sensuous language, in contrast to the rest of the show.
The soft sculptures (bean bags) that had been part of a design show earlier endeavoured to dwell on organic forms. Thisdidn’t quite work and one had to agree with the artist when she said that it was something that had not completely resolved itself and in that context should be seen as work in progress.
Once again Manisha Parekh has struck the right chord,balancing works of diverse painterly idioms, collages, drawings, soft sculptures and wall relief with confidence and self-assurance. ‘Spinning Secrets’ doesn’t disappoint.
Image Courtesy: Gallery Nature Morte, New Delhi.
