Art amalgam

"It’s a joy when people interpret a painting in a way that I hadn’t seen,” abstract artist Delna Dastur was quoted in Span, March/April 2010. At her first solo show in India, at Delhi’s Gallery Art Motif, Dhalla exhibited 14 of her works entitled "Conflict Series — Nature vs Machinery.” Instead of wallowing in sadness when a house developer cut down a tall, old tree across the street from her house in Virginia, Dastur chose to express her angst in the following months through her paintings. Perturbed by the constant clash between nature and technology, Dastur recommends, "We have to celebrate what grows naturally. If the two can live happily together, wouldn’t that be nice?”

With Indian audiences becoming more receptive and comfortable with abstract art, Dastur’s artworks, ranging between Rs 15,000 to Rs 150,000, sold well, Art Motif owner Mala Aneja told Span. During the course of her art sojourn, Dastur’s works have been exhibited at solo and group exhibitions in different galleries throughout the world including the Queens Museum of Art, New York and the Cymroza Art Gallery in Bombay. Her works also feature in the collections of Astra Zeneca, Wilmington, Delaware, PRTM, Washington, besides private collections in the US, London and India.

"Over the years as I developed as an artist, I came to the realization that the process of making a piece of art intrigues me more than its subject matter. I am never satisfied with using one medium exclusively and always attempt to combine several,” remarked Dastur who operates either from her tranquil tree-shaded studio in Alexandria, Virginia or the balcony of a high-rise apartment in Bombay. Her website delnadastur.com carries visuals of her artworks from the time they were conceived until they evolved into her masterpieces.

Delna Dastur (Photo courtesy: Span, March/April 2010) with her works (clockwise from far right): Architectural, Carrot March and Affection

A faculty member at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and The Art League of Alexandria, 63-year-old Dastur who takes three-hour classes is constantly impressing on her students: "This is a process-oriented class with an emphasis on finding a more intuitive way of working.” One of her students Barbara is quoted on her website, "Delna encouraged us to leave our security blankets at the door to discover new ways of seeing, thinking and doing. Every class had all the excitement of an adventure to foreign lands. We explored inventive ways to use charcoal as well as novel techniques for building an abstract composition with acrylics by starting with a single shape or even letters of the alphabet.”

Yet another student Matthew who signed up for an abstract art course in the autumn of 2006 with some misgivings wondering "how someone could be taught to think and create pieces which evoke such diverse feelings,” acknowledged later, "This course was not only successful but one of the best taught classes I have taken at the Smithsonian.”

Having studied at the Wellesley College, the American University and The Art League in USA, Dastur mentions, "I allow the subject matter to navigate itself, to rise from the medley of emerging shapes… I embraced charcoal as my primary medium for several years, using a variety of improvised tools such as ear syringes, brushes, charcoal powder, ink and many different types of erasers to manipulate it… Currently I am painting on large canvases, transforming their smooth surfaces into fields of texture by applying any number of pastes, gels and clear gessoes (clear primers) raked through with hardware implements to create peaks and dips into which the acrylic paints flow… Intuition is my favorite tool and I embrace it mightily.”

Having spent four decades in the USA following her marriage to her college sweetheart and their subsequent migration "Dastur’s positive educational experiences in the US are being put to good use as she gives back to the needy and disabled children in India,” comments Span. When in Bom­bay, she teaches art and language skills at The Central Society for the Education of the Deaf and she also supports a Goan charity, Child­Rescue.