The very concept of landscape renditions over the ages, has shifted along with the new understanding of human existence. Likewise, in the present era, instead of just Landscape,the conjoined term “Land-Skype” perhaps may be more appropriateto transcribe the narratives of nature, connectingthe pasttothe present.  While Land itself is synonymous with man’s earliest existence, “Skype” is a contemporary term from the digital world, applicable for communicating with a larger audience over the internet. When put together they often create new imagery, a new dialogue of "Visual Voyage" and thisonline show, unveilsa few suchcanvas and paper works of mine, based on nature.

The show istitled,"Silence, the mystic birthplace of the soul" (Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Canto13) – a series trying to map the routes of imagination through the index of nature and natural habitatsalong with theirecological challenges.None of the works conform to any specific locale as such,or attempts to qualify as geographical realities. They are all expressions of nature perceived, sieved and transmitted through the layers of my imagination.

The magnificence of the botanical world stimulates my creativity since childhood as I studied and grew up in the pristine surroundings of Rabindranath Tagore’s Santiniketan. The changing seasons, the vibrant colours of flowers and foliages, the rumbling monsoon clouds, the crown-like raindrops, the red undulating lateritic terrain… all got imprinted within meever since and nurtured my layers of perception over the years.

The land arrangements in my works are, therefore,more of mental synopsis, nurtured in silence where the association of form, line, colour and texture appears to weave a kind of statement, a personal dialogue regarding the preciousness of nature. Through the embedded layers of memory, they try to interpret a kind of “spiritual ecology” between the body and soul. They all align to configure the poetics and wonders of nature. Composed to equate such personal readings and visual correspondences,my works ultimately seek the notions of "spiritual awakening" amidst the anarchy and disharmony all around. 

Sohini Dhar