Artist Harshdeep Kaur celebrates cultural nuances of Sikhism and natural landscapes in her solo exhibition, Engaging With The Ultimate

Her work speaks of the social and natural landscapes that surround our physical and imaginative selves while evoking an intrinsic emotive charm. Presented by Dhoomimal Gallery and curated by Dr Seema Bawa, artist Harshdeep Kaur’s solo exhibition titled Engaging With The Ultimate offers a varied mix of canvases showcasing landscapes and figurative works.

The series that sets her work apart is based on Sikh men and women, embedded as it is in her own lived experience. She paints her observation of the lives of the Sikh people, their festivals and rituals. Her works reveal vignettes of Sikh heritage founded in its distinctive socio-cultural and visual identity, manifesting a lived faith pictorially.

“Sikh people and their rituals inspire me to create a new dimension in art. The khalsas wearing kesari turbans, engaged in meditation, working in the fields or as horse riding soldiers, skilled in warfare, have left a lasting impression on my art,” explains Harshdeep.

There are also two contemplative works, Prasad and Prayer that represent their communitarian and egalitarian world through ritual practice of service and meditative silence revealed through the word, shabd and nama; both leading towards realisation of the ultimate reality.

Another trait marker of the Sikhs is their appearance, especially the turban. The dumala or domala is a turban wound with lesser number of folds, worn by devout members of both genders. Her paintings, both big as well as the small format, depict these dumala wearers. A slightly whimsical work shows a woman wearing dumala, donning western wear and sporting dark glasses, a mark of the diaspora’s struggle to adapt to the changing milieu.

Her landscapes explore silent spaces marked by the absence of humans, where it is the trees, birds, lakes and waters that suggest a narrative of peace. Then there are the short poesies painted into a bunch of flowers in bloom or a pair of trees conversing in shadows of dusk, in reflections of forms in still waters.

The natural world has been magnified in her landscape paintings. The play and the experimentation with monochromatic tonalities of ink is seen in her forms, creating lots of depth both in figures and landscapes.

(The exhibition is on till December 8 at Arpana Art Gallery, 11 am to 7 pm.)