Rupanjali Baruah : Sublime Rhaphsody

Like hermetic thoughts, I transform the visual elements on my canvas into a compressed linguistic phenomenon and at the same time enhance that language with the power of communication. This language or abstract context totally discards the chances of misinterpretation since I do not allow this power of communication to be a temporary displacement of meaning. Each meaning brings in more and more associations until I reach the right context of comprehending a particular image. If there is something to be interpreted, the interpretation must speak of something which must be found somewhere beyond the visible and tangible. Taking a large exterior as my perspective (the interior is always made to be the essential part of my conception) and loading it with disparate items that evoke complex and multiple associations and thoughts, longings, and moods. These abstract images make one aware of the space I am in, and allow others to observe and partake of my feelings through the spaces themselves and objects within that are only vehicles for communicating those messages through them. My art is supposed to expose the underlying tenuousness of everyday realities to reflect on the origins of things that are taken for granted in the daily realities including the very environment.

There is in me an internal palpable urge or necessity where a strange restlessness begins to take over my senses and they are reflected as pointers on my canvas. The search for the true identity becomes part of the non-narrative, non-figurative dramatic treatment on all the elements of my art. It provides new dimensions to the conflicts where I explore ideas like non-linear methods to identify my own internal dialogue with myself or with Supreme Being since my own identity as an individual generally gets usurped by the new age explorations and ideas that are determined often by the awareness of vulnerability of human existence. Images of various social symbols of identity with the use of abstract images represent my inner feelings, and they are aesthetically employed in each of my treatments where small identities are shown in conflict with larger ones to pass my comments on existentialism that overpower human sensibilities where name and fame become mere clichés. I explore how as a common person I dreams to fly and touch a world beyond. My keen sense of color and light enable me to delve deeper into creating a poetic, multi-layered associative language of painting. There is an inherent pull of tensions as my sensibilities are overlapped spaces where I look for an organic whole in spite of the chaos all around.

The creative spirit of my abstract art allows organic transformation with fantastic interplay of color and biological images of threads, burst of color like flashes of entities. Magnificent nature transforms into phenomenal creations on my canvas. Sometimes phantasmal reflections of self are internalized to give wholeness to abstractions.

My abstract compositions are often beyond forms with simple elementary definitions with some kind of distortions in proportions, spatial compositions with nonrepresentational color schemes. I use visual language for shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world determined by the logic of perspective and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality. It becomes an alternative way of describing visual experience to the artist in me whenever I feel a need to create a new kind of expression which would encompass the fundamental changes taking place in my philosophical perspectives of self and the cosmos. My abstract art can be seen as an assemblage of myriad images that may not depict a person, place or thing as in the natural world, even when observed in an extremely distorted or exaggerated way, therefore, the subject of my artwork is based on what I see; color, shapes, brushstrokes, size, scale and in some cases in the use and inherent meaning of color. Red is to me lively and confident; green is peaceful that give me inner strength; blue is deep and supernatural; while yellow could be warm, exciting and white seemed silent like endless space full of possibilities. I also assign particular tones to go with each color: Red sound like a trumpet; green is like a middle-position viola; light blue like flute; dark blue like a deep-throated cello, yellow sound like a fanfare of trumpets; and white invariably sound like the pause in a harmonious melody. These analogies to sounds perhaps come from my understanding of Kandinsky's similar appreciation for music, especially that by the contemporary Viennese composer Arnold Schoenberg. My titles often refer to the colors in a composition of music that gravitate me toward abstraction gained through my own heightened spiritual upsurge movement. The sources from which I as an individual artist draw my concepts are diverse and reflect my social and personal preoccupations in all areas of oriental thought, upbringing and culture of my time.

I interpret the varied realities of environment and spiritual leanings and motions that I observe through my meditative repose. Like the traditional theatergoer who does not forget that I have come in from outside to sit and take in a created experience, similarly the trademark of my art has been that of a curious and eager participant in this universal drama of cause and effect, though still aware that I am at a temporal setting and tentatively exploring the novel universe through my creations. I follow these associations of sublime musings, recollections which arise in me oftentimes; I am thereby overcome by the intense atmosphere of the total illusion of human existence. There is that resultant sympathetic involvement with the arrangement of images that precludes an intimately personal viewing experience. My art operates fully within the realm of sensory perceptions, in a sense inspiring me into a system of thought and understanding with an appeal to my subjective perception as its ultimate spiritual goal. My abstractions indicate a departure from reality in depiction of imagery in the universe. This departure from accurate representation can be slight, partial, or complete. Abstraction exists along a continuum. My art that aims for verisimilitude of the highest degree can be said to be abstract since a perfect representation is likely to be exceedingly elusive. My artwork at times which takes liberties, altering for instance color and form in ways that are conspicuous, can be said to be partially abstract.

I explore the bold use of paint surface, drawing distortions and exaggerations of real images by use of intense colors and thereby produce emotionally charged paintings that are reactions to and perceptions of my contemporary experiences. I sometimes drastically change the emphasis on subject matter in favor of the portrayal of psychological states of being to create sensual and spiritual works that are sublime, thought evoking as contemplative spaces in which I am soothed into reflecting on topics like godliness and humanism. Through my sensual spaces, I confront myself with an overload of images and sounds about such issues as existentialism and its tensions. I toy with ideas of space and society, seen and unseen, identity and perception that have a way of causing me to rethink of the essential beauty and grace in the social fabric.

A close up view of each of my abstract art allows others to see the lost map of my psyche that took shape during my growing years. Different color effects provide insight into layers of thoughts that have molded my consciousness. So here I am a teller of my own tales. Each day is to me a chance to do something beautiful, almost ethereal.

My colors reflect the landscape of my mind; the inner world that I inhabit comes alive on all the attributes on my canvas. Vitality that I find inherent in natural phenomenon is interconnected with the grand handiwork of Almighty and I try to weave my tapestries of color from everyday details to make sense of my intense joy in these sublime ethereal experiences. These experiences with color and brushstrokes cleanse and enshrine my sensibilities in all the repositories of emotions. I discover myself in my myriad colors - my canvas is me a reverent space to pay my obeisance to the world I exist.

I put layers of color on my canvas and make incisions with palette knife to create a multi-dimensional effect. I start initially with a thick coat of red paint on canvas, lets it dry for a while and then put another layer of blue or deep purple, let it dry slightly to enable me to make deep, crisscross designs on them until I achieve my desired effect. In this way my canvas is inlaid with vibrant hues that create raised effect that transform the canvas into a riot of colors.

In the series 'Far Away Windows' I began with heap of layered colors and yet there is a disciplined control in the organization of colors so as to give the effect of various shades and dimensions of a window since from a distance. It is my own window that corresponds with my inner reflection of how a window is synonymous with life as an inspiring motif. I generally work with one predominant color that is worked out in various gradations through light and heavy brushstrokes that gives the look of a meticulous handiwork of a disciplined artist.

The juxtaposition of two brilliant shades of red and blue is like an orchestrated piece of melody where these two primary colors are placed in such balanced manner that each exists independent of the other and yet the overall effect is of one symphony.