As a self confessed “semi-abstract artist”, most of Gita Hudson’s paintings are abstract. However, she has done a series on ancient musical instruments and a series on Tamil Nadu temple murals in the past, but in her own colour palette, recreating them because many of them were disappearing. But Gita does not consider that her signature style mainly because they were copies from temple paintings. Gita has also done thematic exhibitions with a group of six artists called Art.is — on small format and one on folk deities.
Gita’s last solo show was in 2018, and “after that nothing”, she admits. A year ago, she felt the urge to do something fresh, away from her series, for the sheer joy of painting without any inhibitions. “I was gifted a tiny box by an artist friend, with Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers on the box. It was a tiny box of mint. When I looked at it, I couldn’t stop thinking how beautiful those yellow sunflowers looked; so, I was like, why not make a series on the sunflowers? That was the spark and The Sun Flowers was born,” begins the artist.
Once she had the idea in place, Gita started to contemplate if she should completely move away from her signature style. “Then, I thought I should make round canvases! I tried to stick to the tones and shades of yellow and ochre but of course, since I use a lot of crimson in my paintings, they seep through here and there. But I consciously decided to explore a new colour. I made around 20-25 works, and then to complement them as the palette looked very interesting, I enlarged seven of them and printed them on canvas. The rest are oil on canvas,” she shares.
The artist worked with metal embossing 20 years ago, later giving it up for reasons she does not remember. “The last I remember I did a huge Buddha in metal for a friend of mine, and after that, I stopped. When I was working on The Sun Flowers, I thought I should go back to the metal work, hence, I created these large panels. It’s a laborious task, but I enjoyed it after a long time! It’s worth all the back-breaking work when I hear visitors go ‘wow’ while seeing them on display,” says Gita.
Apart from the tiny gift box that sparked her imagination, it is Gita’s love for sunflowers that made her work on this series. She explains, “Sunflowers have a character to them. They are also about hope, the morning, the tomorrow, the sunset, sunrise, seasons, the highs and lows in life — they exude many such feelings. When you see a field of sunflowers, it does something to you. I have painted different kinds of sunflowers, some dried, and others fresh. It’s not what we just see on the canvas; the style of work, the
pattern, vocabulary, the visual culture comes into play whatever series an artist might intend to do. It’s a culmination of different thought processes and different phases of our lives, and then they come together as a series.”
Since the collection of paintings is titled The Sun Flowers, Gita consciously put in an effort to not make anything close to Vincent Van Gogh’s famous Sunflowers. “I wanted to keep mine simple.”
All of Gita’s paintings are in earth tones — browns and reds, maroons and oranges. In this collection however, she wanted to bring the texture and the colour of deep yellow and chrome. “Of course, my regular colour palette blends alongside, but predominantly, I have used shades of yellow, deep yellow, ochre, browns, reds and deep browns,” she says.
Rs 12,000 onwards.
On view till 12 March.
10.30 am to 6 pm.
Labernum & Indigo Gallery
Cholamandel Artists’ Village.
rupam@newindianexpress.com
@rupsjain