Tenor of Exploration looks to muse as medium Premium

Works on display at The Tenor of Exploration employ natural substances as art media

Ever since man has wielded a paintbrush, Nature has been a favoured muse for artists. An exhibition of paintings by four of the city’s artists — Bharati Sagar, Bhavani G S, Gunjan Arora and Shirley Mathew — looks to capture Nature as a medium through their work. The Tenor of Exploration, a group show celebrates art created using natural media.

According to Shirley Mathew who curated the show, the works on display are a result of extensive research and experimentation with natural materials.

“For me, it began during the lockdown when I couldn’t go to my studio and I began using whatever I could lay my hands on in the kitchen. Since then, I have kept up with it and this show is a result of interacting with other artists who were using sustainable and recycled material.”

Little wonder then, substances such as turmeric, archival inks, coffee decoction, and vegetables and plant-based glue have been put to use in the creation of these works. While Bhavani creates paper collages, Bharati’s works are conjured up with a medium of her own making — citric acid and powdered iron rust. Hailing from the fashion industry, Gunjan has used scrap material to fashion landscapes.

In a their bid to avoid using chemical substances as far as possible, the artists undertook a lot of research to concoct media to use on their canvases.

Shirley spoke with folk artists who have long used natural techniques to create works of art. “It was challenging as the medium we came up with needed to adhere to the canvas. Pichwai artists told us to use unprimed canvases for our work, while an art conservation expert explained how natural gum Arabic could be used for charcoal works instead of the popularly-used chemical spray. The process of researching for alternatives was interesting.”

For Bhavani who has been working with eco-friendly media such as packing material for close to 20 years, the central theme of The Tenor of Exploration, was an extension of her work.