Beyond boundaries

"Beyond the Chasm’ is about emerging from a depth. Emerging elatedly with a new avatar and therefore a newer consciousness. The mind/spirit seems no longer lost in somber worlds residing among dark clouds of gloom and graying dreams. A buoyant vigor unleashes, pushing through all restraining aggression to unearth beyond the abyss a new found energy that is clothed in color washes of thoughtful speculation. Faint strains of a rising sonnet also reside here now.” This description by Niyatee Shinde summarizes artist Aban Irani’s recent exhibition at the Jehangir Art Gallery (JAG) from November 22 to 28, 2002. There were nearly 35 paintings on view of which the acrylics on paper ranging in size from 1’x1’ to 3’x2’ were priced between Rs 2,000 and Rs 20,000. The acrylics on canvas, varying from 1’x1’ to 3’x3’ cost between Rs 20,000 to 40,000. Twelve of her exhibits were sold, noted Irani in mid-February.

Using the barest minimum color in her acrylics on canvas she shows that "even color is not so necessary to paint a glorious spring.” Generally she prefers to alternate color and black and white exhibitions. The black and white paintings are done during the period of seeking solutions. When realization dawns, so does color, explains the artist who prefers to paint through the night when there is least disturbance.

Irani’s acrylics on paper and canvas display a new vigor

In 1994 her exhibition ‘Feelings Felt’ at the Jehangir Art Gallery showed only black and white paintings and 10 years prior to that ‘Flowings’ revealed only her pastel works at the JAG.

Having studied at the Sir J. J. School of Art, Irani’s first exhibits were on view at a group show at the Sir J. J. School of Art in Bombay in 1969. Over the years she has held many solo exhibitions in Bombay, taken her works to Bangalore, Delhi and Calcutta as also overseas to London, Brussels and Paris, notes an introduction to the artist. Irani also featured in the "50 years of Art in Mumbai 1947-1997” at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Bombay. Having graduated as a history honors student from Bombay’s Elphinstone College in 1964 Irani, who earned her Diplome de Langue de Paris from the Alliance Francaise, chose to pursue art.

Her latest crop of paintings "promise of a surge that is indulgently organic and fertile (as)...flora and fauna wing across ecological worlds.”