“Shifting Terrain”: Artist Radhika Hemlai Explores Humanity and Relations During Pandemic

079 | Stories – one of the leading art galleries in Ahmedabad – presents a mesmerizing show by the young and talented artist Radhika Hamlai, titled ‘Shifting Terrain’. “A solo show of paintings, prints and sculptures”, the ongoing exhibition is on display from 11am to 7pm until March 5th.

When one first encountered Radhika Hamlai’s work, the emphasis was on the self, for she was looking deeply at the notion of ‘identity’. Her works are a personal exploration that pose questions like “who are we?” “Where do we belong?” While that has not changed, however, her method of approaching the self has indeed shifted.

In her recent engagement ”Shifting Terrain”, Radhika has moved towards a response to the widespread anxiety about humanity’s increasingly discordant relationship with the world and the accompanying lost feelings of authenticity and spirituality as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Radhika faced personal loss as her mother passed away during the second wave that took many lives. This naturally led to a huge shift in her emotional terrain. While her mother was unwell, she had already begun creating work that revisited some of her earlier paintings and monoprints that were just lying unfinished in her studio.

SOLACE IN CERAMIC ART

Being isolated during the lockdown, she took guidance to create the ceramic work from online videos and an online tutor who coached her over the internet. In a way she grew addicted to working in her studio and it turned into her safe space to create and process her feelings. She literally stopped painting for that whole tenure and concentrated mainly on ceramic work. It was not until she reached her threshold that she understood that painting is her ‘real calling’ and she returned to it with a sense of redefined structure after working in the third dimension.

THE GRANDEUR OF MONO-PRINTING

Another area that was redefined was her process of Monoprints. For the uninitiated, Mono-Printing is a type of printmaking where the intent is to make unique prints that may explore an image serially. The idea is to take different colours and textures and work them into the composition layer by layer. Mono-prints may include collage, hand-painted additions, and a form of tracing by which thick ink is laid down on a table, paper is placed on top and is then drawn on, transferring the ink onto the paper. Radhika’s style follows the latter technique quite a lot, where the thick defining lines of ink are drawn upon to receive the impression of the lines onto the paper.

In fact, monoprints are known as the most painterly method among the printmaking techniques; it is essentially a ‘printed painting.’ For Radhika, the Mono-Print is a demanding space and she enjoys the challenge, the experimentation and the final discovery of the form.

The entire body of work that she presents before the viewer is essentially her explorations and experiments during the lockdown period. Like many artists being isolated has led to a period of interiority and as mentioned, Radhika was already an artist who enjoyed exploring the self. Even while the forms and the characters seem outgoing and lively, they are also introspective and take one on a deeper journey.

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