Kotwal’s creations

"As a lyrical painter I want my artwork to be enjoyed and feasted upon visually,” declares long standing Australian Zoroastrian Association (AZA) member Sherna Kotwal whose creation Boots and All won the first prize at The Ku-ring-gai Art Society exhibition in Sydney this July. Adjudged the best of 45 exhibits in the acrylic category, Kotwal’s creation painted in strong and vibrant colors made the president of the Society describe her as an original and dynamic artist.

Preferring to use "strong, vibrant color in expressive and semi-abstract style,” Kotwal who has been pursuing art for the last 30 years urges, "Make what you will of my work. Take ownership of it, discover happy accidents, see the history of the painting in its ghost images and dribbles, and its painterliness in my favorite word, ‘pentimenti.’” Including a new word in our vocabulary we learn from her that pentimenti means visible evidence of an alteration to a painting or drawing that suggests a change of mind on the part of the artist.

Sherna Kotwal with her prize winning acrylic painting, Boots and All

"No painting is ‘finished’ because it can be changed at any time. I run this risk continually until it comes back framed under glass,” says the artist who in 2007 was elevated to Associate membership of the Royal Art Society (ARAS) of New South Wales and has held several exhibitions at their Lavender Bay Gallery. Over the years the artist has repeatedly won prizes from The Ku-ring-gai Art Society, the Municipal Council’s Special Prize in 2005 and been a finalist at The Royal Easter Show, a prestigious all-Australia exhibition. "I like the layers in my paintings to reflect the intense struggle that has taken place to achieve something that ‘works’… I paint passionately, intuitively and pentimentally,” she sums up, acknowledging the "palpable influence on my style” of artists like Matisse and Bonnard as also contemporary American artists Diebenkorn and Marca-Relli.

In the past nine years though she has been traveling extensively in India in search of "a contemporary style that would do justice to the visual feast that is India.” Believing that she has neared the end of her quest, she has begun experimenting with small paintings and hopes to translate these to her normal large-scale works. "I even dare to dream of a future exhibition in the country of my birth,” says the Poona-born artist who well remembers Lady Templeton, her art teacher during her school days at the Cathedral and John Connon.

Sherna with husband Dorab and son Rashid made their home in the leafy suburb of North Turramurra in Sydney in 1972. "I fell into painting by accident” five years later. When Dorab enrolled in a summer school at Bathurst near Sydney to participate in early music studies she chose to do a course in art with its "cryptic invitation ‘seeing is believing.’ Today it’s old hat but back then in 1977” she was impressed by the "one minute sketches, drawing without lifting the pencil, left-handed drawing… Such fun! Models didn’t stand a chance. They were stretched, pulled into languorous poses, digits missing, bums enlarged. People laughed and so did I.”

It took another 10 years before she became "seriously arty.” Unable to pursue full-time tuition, she attended art classes with "teachers of exceptional caliber like the late Ross Davis, Erika Beck, Valerie Olsen,” followed by several master classes at The National Art School and continues to date with workshops at The Art Gallery of New South Wales in pursuit of color and creativity. "A phrase that appeals to me is ‘Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment,’” says Kotwal to whom bewilderment means "being creative, having a sense of wonder, an openness to learn and absorb new ideas, and to keep pushing the boundaries of one’s own limitations whether in thought or skill…The power of creativity is in its risk taking.”

Active with the AZA at the time of its inception, more recently Kotwal involves herself in the activities of resident action groups pursuing environmental causes. Both she and Dorab also participate in the musical life of Sydney.

Kotwal’s works feature in private collections in Australia and overseas, in the corporate collections of AstraZeneca, Bard Australia, The Public Trustee, The Children’s Hospital, Randwick and the Department of Mathematics at the University of New South Wales, and can be viewed on www.artwhatson.com.au/shernakotwal. Seeking involvement from the beholders she specifies, "Whatever the subject, whether figurative, still life or landscape, I like the viewer to participate and share my illusions with his/her own emotional response to the painting. Above all, I wish the viewer to enjoy and take ownership of what he/she sees. I feel that too much current art shares nothing with the owner who might be buying for reasons other than love of art.”