Sometimes it’s better to be untitled than be labelled at all. Look at the works of Shivani Bagaria (23) and one comes away with the feeling that she has done justice by keeping some of her works nameless. But that doesn’t mean, she’s all for things that don’t have a name.
Some of the monikers she’s bestowed on her works include The Alley, Dawn to Dusk, The Kiss, Black Flames and Marching Lions.
Currently a student of fine arts at the Pratt institute in Brooklyn, New York, she appears to be obsessed with the task at hand. “A gesture driven by emotion creates a line,” she says. “Line creates space and shape. The intention behind the gesture is reflected in the line, giving it identity and introducing drama to the space. The abstract images are explorations of this very simple occurrence.”
Though an artist swimming in her own little world, she’s as real as reality can be. She has majored in finance from Georgetown University in Washington DC and is an intern at ACA Galleries in Chelsea, New York.
Her tenacity of purpose shows. Even while experimenting with pastels, charcoal, photography, bookmaking, acrylics, oils, digital art, metal work and printmaking, Bagaria minored in studio art from the Georgetown University.
She’s also extremely independent. Whatever she undertakes, she approaches from her point of view. And at times, she can be very blunt with people. “I don’t trust the press,” she quips, when asked what her first ever painting sold for in the US. “I have sold two paintings last year, but I won’t tell you for how much.”
But that doesn’t take away from her artistic ability. Says the Kolkata-born who moved to Bangalore when she was five: “People think artists are freaks and live in their own world. The fact is, we are very normal people. I like my own space, but to others I am very approachable and spend a lot of time with all my friends at Pratt.”
Personal vignettes aside, Bagaria intends to make use of her finance degree and get into gallery management even while chasing her artistic goals soon after she finishes her masters in fine arts from Pratt in May 2004. “I look for that painterly quality in prints,” she says. “And most of my pieces will not look alike, whether it’s silkscreen, lithography or etching.”
Her constant companion is a little sketchbook, which doubles as a reservoir of ideas. “Whether I am travelling by train or bus or taking a morning walk, I do rough sketches in the book,” she says. “If I like it, I go home and re-sketch it into a proper full-length painting and mix and match different colours to enhance the effect.”
Though her ideation is rooted in reality, it’s her imagination that rules. “Though most of my ideas are based on everyday life, it’s 85 per cent imagination and 15 per cent reality,” she says about her hundred-odd paintings till date. “If not, the painting fails to be thought provoking or intriguing or even inspiring. I am very fascinated by the sun. A lot of my pieces have sun in different abstract settings.”
Her first international showing will happen in April. “It will be at the Limner Art Gallery in New York,” says Bagaria. “They have chosen a couple of my abstract paintings, out of which they will pick one.”
And no, she doesn’t do portraits. “I have only painted my mother and niece, because portraits just don’t interest me. That’s not my forte.”
Shivani Bagaria’s works are on display at Fluid Space in Manipal Centre between Jan 10 and 20.
(Published in City Reporter, 2003)
