From fiery oranges and yellows, myriad shades of blue, to black, green, rich hues of red and even copper, silver and gold, artist Vinita Karim’s canvases are a glorious riot of colour.

“I love colours. I just can’t work in black and white. There is no fun in that,” tells Vinita.

Born in Myanmar, educated in Sweden and the Philippines, originally from India — Vinita Karim’s nomadic lifestyle takes her all over the world. She channels her constantly changing surroundings into her passion for art and no matter where she goes, through her paintings, sculptures and installations, Vinita carries with her the rest of the world.

Her new collection of abstract cityscapes titled Magical Musings, were created in the last five years, replicate fantastical cities in the artist’s mind on to the canvas. The exhibition also showcases eight sculptures, which she did not sculpt but painted.

The imaginary spaces featuring clusters of houses against robust skies, and sometimes beautifully coloured streams or rivers, are products of Vinita’s entire life, which she has, quite literally, lived out of a suitcase.

The artist is a fan of all things layered, and her paintings are no exception. Sometimes they are layered with different painting techniques, at other times she uses different mediums like acrylic, oil and embroidery to tier her works.

Vinita explains further that her works are literally layered with geographies, histories and the cultures of different places while physically they are the paints, lines and embroidery.

As she travelled from one city to another, each place left a mark. She imbibed their spirits that got intertwined in her head, giving birth to cities of her own.

“My father was part of the Indian Foreign Service and I have lived in over 10 countries. I am like a sponge who has absorbed everything around me. It was not just travelling for me. I was living in these cities. And when you live in a city, you become very intimate with its culture and people. The best thing is that all these different cultures also get embedded in your own psyche,” says she, who is inspired by Austrian landscape artist Hundertwasser, “yet I consistently link back to my roots in India.” Richly coloured canvases combine the sand dunes of Egypt with the islands of the Philippines, the ghats of Varanasi with the rivers of Bangladesh. These are not just pretty pictures, they are “living landscapes”, she explains.

Her rendition of the holy city of Varanasi, for instance, is overwhelmingly rich, particularly the waters.

She uses impasto, a technique where one paints with a palette knife, to render almost a three dimensional texture to the Ganges river in the painting. The canvas made using acrylic, gold and copper on linen, is colourfully chaotic in its juxtaposition of the multi-layered blues of the river, with multi-coloured boats.

“Like I have a lot of different roles other than being an artist, a mother, a wife, similarly in my painting I want to use different mediums. I don’t want a single flat painting. Instead, it needs to have depth in it. I need my works to be layered because they represent many histories combined with a lot of my imagination,” says she.

Oil is her favourite medium even if it takes longer to dry out. She says that it is rich, soft and offers a distinctive depth to the works.

Vinita recreates similar imaginary cities with her work on sculptures too, at the risk of making a viewer feel her work was repetitive, but not in a boring way, largely because of the judicious use of colours.

Vinita has painted landscapes as she strongly believes that it will always be an important part of any art discourse, despite the rising trend in conceptual and digital art.

(The exhibition is on display till January 5 at Gallerie Ganesha.)

Writer and Courtesy: The Pioneer

From fiery oranges and yellows, myriad shades of blue, to black, green, rich hues of red and even copper, silver and gold, artist Vinita Karim’s canvases are a glorious riot of colour.

“I love colours. I just can’t work in black and white. There is no fun in that,” tells Vinita.

Born in Myanmar, educated in Sweden and the Philippines, originally from India — Vinita Karim’s nomadic lifestyle takes her all over the world. She channels her constantly changing surroundings into her passion for art and no matter where she goes, through her paintings, sculptures and installations, Vinita carries with her the rest of the world.

Her new collection of abstract cityscapes titled Magical Musings, were created in the last five years, replicate fantastical cities in the artist’s mind on to the canvas. The exhibition also showcases eight sculptures, which she did not sculpt but painted.

The imaginary spaces featuring clusters of houses against robust skies, and sometimes beautifully coloured streams or rivers, are products of Vinita’s entire life, which she has, quite literally, lived out of a suitcase.

The artist is a fan of all things layered, and her paintings are no exception. Sometimes they are layered with different painting techniques, at other times she uses different mediums like acrylic, oil and embroidery to tier her works.

Vinita explains further that her works are literally layered with geographies, histories and the cultures of different places while physically they are the paints, lines and embroidery.

As she travelled from one city to another, each place left a mark. She imbibed their spirits that got intertwined in her head, giving birth to cities of her own.

“My father was part of the Indian Foreign Service and I have lived in over 10 countries. I am like a sponge who has absorbed everything around me. It was not just travelling for me. I was living in these cities. And when you live in a city, you become very intimate with its culture and people. The best thing is that all these different cultures also get embedded in your own psyche,” says she, who is inspired by Austrian landscape artist Hundertwasser, “yet I consistently link back to my roots in India.” Richly coloured canvases combine the sand dunes of Egypt with the islands of the Philippines, the ghats of Varanasi with the rivers of Bangladesh. These are not just pretty pictures, they are “living landscapes”, she explains.

Her rendition of the holy city of Varanasi, for instance, is overwhelmingly rich, particularly the waters.

She uses impasto, a technique where one paints with a palette knife, to render almost a three dimensional texture to the Ganges river in the painting. The canvas made using acrylic, gold and copper on linen, is colourfully chaotic in its juxtaposition of the multi-layered blues of the river, with multi-coloured boats.

“Like I have a lot of different roles other than being an artist, a mother, a wife, similarly in my painting I want to use different mediums. I don’t want a single flat painting. Instead, it needs to have depth in it. I need my works to be layered because they represent many histories combined with a lot of my imagination,” says she.

Oil is her favourite medium even if it takes longer to dry out. She says that it is rich, soft and offers a distinctive depth to the works.

Vinita recreates similar imaginary cities with her work on sculptures too, at the risk of making a viewer feel her work was repetitive, but not in a boring way, largely because of the judicious use of colours.

Vinita has painted landscapes as she strongly believes that it will always be an important part of any art discourse, despite the rising trend in conceptual and digital art.

(The exhibition is on display till January 5 at Gallerie Ganesha.)

Writer and Courtesy: The Pioneer