Special: The World of Sangeeta Gupta

Artist Statement

To my inner self and elsewhere, nature is a phenomenon that creates and destroys time and space without a halt. Writing poetry is also my means of knowing nothingness. My perceptions sometimes bring about amazing personal revelations. As a painter too I have been composing shades of colours that dissolve nature into forms and formlessness and subsequently enter the region of nothingness. One may not be endowed with the knowledge of how to go beyond this experience.

It begins suddenly at an empty space, generates energy, goes on clubbing with opposite forces and finally passes beyond time. I have attempted to identify space at every nook and corner of the landscape, discovering and rediscovering the infinite existence of nothingness. My urge to conceive the truth of our time drives me sometimes to probe the elusive realms of human existence. 

My works on canvas like my poetry talk of the past-of the primal and the historic-of Time’s own future. Some of my paintings, therefore, float into non-stop fantasies dispersed all around. The volatile acts of earth and nature arrest my fancy and lead me to the nucleus of my body and soul drawing me to a unique experience that possibly cannot be expressed through mere words. 

In my paintings, I represent nothing. Pure abstraction has become my inevitable destiny. I pray to God and my Guru and meditate before I touch the canvas and like a blessing a painting is born each time. Each time it is new, yet there is an organic unity, a cosmic bonding between all my works. When I paint, I salute the spirit. 

~ Sangeeta Gupta

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A BRIEF PROFILE 

35 solo exhibitions , 25books, 10 books translated in other languages, 17 documentary films and still counting.

Her tryst with art is born of her own meditative ruminations in time, the undulating blend of calligraphic and sculptonic entities are all realms that she has explored with aplomb. Images in abstraction that harkens the memory of Himalayan journeys and inspirations, the works speak of an artistic sojourn that continues in a mood of ruminations and reflections over the passage of time.

Sangeeta wields the brush with finesse, suggesting the viscosity of ink, the glossiness of lacquer, the mist of heights, the glow of the sun, and the inherent palette of rocks when wet. The canvases bespeak surfaces akin to skin, bark and the earth.

Her first solo exhibition was at the Birla Academy of Art & Culture, Kolkata in 1995. Her 35 solo shows have been held all over India i.e. Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Chandigarh and abroad at London, Berlin, Munich, Lahore, Belfast, Thessolinki and Toronto. Her one show was inaugurated by the former President of India; Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam in August, 2013. Which was dedicated to Uttarakhand, fund raised through sale proceeds of the paintings is  used for creating a Fine Art Education grant for the students of Uttarakhand. She has participated in more than 200 group shows in India & abroad, in national exhibitions of Lalit Kala Akademi, All India Fine Arts & Craft Society and Sahitya Kala Parishad and in several art camps. Her painting are in the permanent collection of Bharat Bhavan Museum, Bhopal and museums in Belgium and Thessolinki .  Her works have been represented in India Art Fairs, New Delhi many times.

She has received 69th annual award for drawing in 1998 and 77th annual award for painting in 2005 by AIFACS, New Delhi and was also conferred Hindprabha award for Indian Women Achievers by Uttar Pradesh Mahila Manch in 1999, Udbhav Shikhar Samman 2012 by Udbhav for her achievements in the field of art and literature and was awarded "Vishwa Hindi Pracheta Alankaran" 2013 by Uttar Pradesh Hindi Saahitya Sammelan & Utkarsh Academy, Kanpur. She was bestowed with Women Achievers Award from Indian Council for UN relations on the eve of International Women’s Day in March, 2013 and many more after that.

There is a collection of short stories and fourteen anthologies of poems in Hindi to her credit. Her  collections of poems are translated in many languages,  German, Greek, Mandarin, English, Bangla, Dogri and  and Urdu. Her book , Lekhak ka Samay  2006, is a compilation of interviews of eminent women writers in Hindi. Weaves of Time, Ekam, Song Of Silence, Ends Are Beginnings, Rise From Your Ashes and Hym To Trees are her 6 collections of poems in English. Song OfThe Cosmos is her creative biography. Mussavir Ka Khayal, Roshni  Ka Safar are her  book of poems and drawings/paintings. Lal Batti Ke Bachhe, Beej Sirf Zamin Par Ugate Hain and Ek Khwab Aasma Hua Jata Hai are three  collection of Hindi poems  published 2019.

She has directed, scripted and shot 17 documentary films,7 of them are in the collection of Library of Congress, US.

She is awidely travelled person. She lives and works in Delhi, India.

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Work-out of a Faith

The purpose of art is to celebrate the world we all have in common. In these times, through the absence of shared convictions, and the concomitant accumulation of catastrophes, the chances of finding the joy of hope has become increasingly rare. At moments, the otherwise busting metropolitan space appearing as a kind of cruel joke; and which only by dint of taking things lightly are we able to endure. But self-induced euphoria wear off soon enough. The chimeras of almost insoluble problems loom up once again. Apparently there is too little on which we can genuinely rejoice. Yet, right on such a scenario arrive the truer of the artists, reminding us of what we habitually forget: the duty to impose order upon endemic chaos.

I felt the foregoing preamble right, even as I brought to mind the persona of Sangeeta Gupta, as much as her art. From what I have known of her, and her work, she quickly brings home to the observer her undeniable commitment to life. Yes she has the necessary madness, of a creative passion and so without neglecting her obligations to the family – I mean the human family (often, in her case made up of underdogs). It is such zeal as energizes her anima, and that same intensity is brought to bear upon her new compositions with force. They breathe life, and are entirely the result of felt experiencing of her surroundings. Here, then, is a sign of health in a climate of narcissism. To pursue an intense, and independent life of the mind within the parameters of the overall community, means precisely that.

- Keshav  Malik

New Delhi, March 2006.

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Setu, April 2021