Divine Abstract-22564

Title

Divine Abstract-22564

Artist

Baljit Chadha

Medium

Tapestry - Textile - Mix Media On Fabrics

Description

The Eternal Circle

Circle is an old symbol. The earliest humans looked up the sky and found the orb of fire giving them light and warmth. Sun for them was a mystical power, a god. They saw its movement from morning in the east and to the west in the evening. Next day again it came up in the sky. They regarded it as an omnipresent power that repeated its emergence with cyclical regularity. There was no beginning or end to the sun for them. It was the sun that allowed their imagination to look in the circular form endlessness, infinity. Thus quite early circle became a symbol of completeness, eternity and also rejuvenation.
Baljit Chadha is an artist with deep roots in Asian cultural traditions which include India and especially Japan. Long years spent in Japan drew his creative interest to Japanese style painting. With great felicity he paints Nature and flowers. That is but only one aspect of his creative forays.
Baljit’s paintings have varied moments of inspiration. In some works the circle is a serene quiet peaceful disc emitting soft tones and leading you to a feeling of inner joy.
Baljit has used these idiosyncratic free floating lines in most of his works. These lines seem at times to ‘obstruct’ your view of the pure circle. The eternal spiritual that the circle represents is often made hazy by our infatuation with the maya. At other times he uses tumbling interacting images in embellished gold reminding of the drama of life that has its own breathtaking charm. In yet another painting there is a linear window-like overlay through which you see the circle of the infinite.
Baljit’s paintings have varied moments of inspiration. In some works the circle is a serene quiet peaceful disc emitting soft tones and leading you to a feeling of inner joy. This work has a churning of the inner space and a rotation suggesting the cycle of the world or universe. The core of the painting appears to be a mystical kernel beyond human mind and opens with immense energy straight in your face, it mesmerizes you, holds you in its clasp and if you focus long on its centre you are drawn in it. In a different way his painting reminds me of Van Gogh’s intense sunflowers that emit a spiritual intensity.
You find in the world what you want to see in it and not what it has. Baljit finds what he is looking for in the circular forms—be it a round flower, sun, or the eternal soul or the cycle of life death and rebirth or the planets and stars in the universe.
Baljit looks at the eternal drama of the universe through his symbolic circle. I may here quote from a poem from the great Indian saint and poet Kabir that is also apt for Baljit’s art—

I have known in my body the sport of the universe: I have escaped from the error of this world.
The inward and the outward are become as one sky, the Infinite and the finite are united: I am drunken with the sight of this All!
This Light of Thine fulfils the universe: the lamp of love that burns on the salver of knowledge.
Kabîr says: "There error cannot enter, and the conflict of life and death is felt no more."

Viktor Vijay Kumar
Director Curator
European Artists’ Association
Germany

In the floral work of Baljit Chadha, his pathway began with basic flowers, in pen and
ink due to the inspiration of classic sumi-e (ink painting) during his sojourn in Japan.
He understood this as the simple, basic embrace of nature –“to pluck a flower and paint
it!” Pursuing this spirit further, he declares that “I do not believe in straight lines, rather
a spontaneous use of colour.” He is more known in artistic circles to date in India for
his abstract paintings.
Chadha incorporates his personal embrace of abstraction within the depiction of
the ‘divine flower’. Thereby extending the spatial component and fertilizing the
surrounding air with colour and stroke. His idiosyncratic method, reminiscent of spin/
action painting, is to squeeze the paint from plastic bottles.
DIVINE BLOOMS
A pansy, gladiolas, lilies, asters, hyacinth, to cite but a few, each painting is unique.
In spirit they are homage to Chadha’s passion to paint. Just as for the Old Master
painters of still-lives and floral subjects, each flower imparts his personal connection
and interpretation. The Mother of the Sri Aurobindo Society also penned a tome on
the significance and meaning of flowers. Chadha earlier had photographed flowers all
over the world, as part of his journeys and daily life. The kinetic nature of his paintings
departs from the photographic lens.
In consideration of the palette and use of materials, Chadha’s works bear a shimmering
sensibility akin to that of stained glass, a sort of translucence reflecting his rhythm of life.
One, which he shares with the facets of nature, he so consecrates on a daily basis, a true
immersion in this realm of his natural imagination.
For Chadha, this lexicon of intimate and universal beauty celebrates the diversity and
complex, ever startling web of interconnectivity of life. At its core, a true marvelling of
the adavaita, non-duality of humanity and the natural world which surrounds us, one
which we must heed to protect and admire.
Elizabeth Rogers
February 2011
I painted an Eden of flowers divine

“The sun shone in between, and all the little white flowers sparkled. … I went on painting at the risk and peril of seeing the whole show on the ground at any moment -- it's a white effect with a good deal of yellow in it, and blue and lilac, the sky white and blue.”
Letter to Theo van Gogh, c.11 April 1888 by Vincent Van Gogh
The intensity, poetics and singularity of joy that Van Gogh brought to the art of painting flowers remains unrivalled in the annals of art history. In terms of adjusted prices Van Gogh remains the highest priced artist for his paintings of flowers. His ‘Irises’ were priced at more than $100 million (adjusted) and his ‘Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers’ for more than $ 75 million (adjusted).
Before Van Gogh flower painting was a part of Still Life painting tradition. But he changed it all. A man who painted seriously only for two years of his life changed the way we look at flowers and sunflowers specially.
Of other artists who loved to paint flowers the name of American Georgia O’Keeffe comes at the top. Matisse painted flowers largely as part art decorative style. His flowers carry the flat two dimensionality but are saturated with pure colours as per Fauvist tradition.
Divine flowers
The fascination with the floral form for Chadha began about two
> decades ago when as a teenager sent to Japan he began to imbibe the
> essence of Japanese culture. This quest had brought him in contact
> with artist Ms Ohta Miyoko, who instructed him in the technique of
> ‘sui-sai’, or the making of water colour paintings free hand. ‘We
> plucked flowers from a garden and then painted them,’ he recalls. Back
> home, Chadha realised that the experience had not just equipped him
> with a technique but also left an indelible mark on his sensibilities.
> ‘I was involved with flowers most of the time; whether it was by
> painting them, or even shooting flowers with my camera. Even when I
> went on a recent trip to Hemkund Sahib, I spent a long time clicking
> flowers around the area and those shots have been added to my
> inventory of flowers for future paintings.’
> The floral art that Chadha creates is not a factual reproduction.
> There is a wistful familiarity linking them to nature no doubt, but
> most often they are perceptions of the angles and the momentary splash
> of colour that permeates his mind at sight of a flower. The
> spontaneity of his production has to match the flashing impact of the
> form on his mind and that is what has led Chadha to devise a way of
> creating art speedily. ‘I squeeze colours from push tubes on to the paper
> and then swirl the paint into the form that has impacted mentally. I
> finish each art work with a coat of lustre and my paintings are
> completed. Of course, my sketch book, papers and camera, are always
> near at hand. The dining table has a few sheets ready for use. I carry
> my camera in my briefcase wherever I go and even sketch while
> travelling. In this way, the preliminary work of flower making is
> already registered on the sheet. Then, in my studio at home, I work at
> completing each work. Immediately after making the art work, I click
> images of it and post it on the internet and let the whole world share
> in the joy of my creation.’
Ms Mazumudhar- art critic


Right Insticts

It is essential we realize that our response to art depends on a great deal of touch memory and that this information comes to us through our eyes. Added to this is the principle of gravity which gives us a sense of balance and cohesion. We are quick to recognize anything that is top- heavy, lop- sided or in any way unbalanced or incoherent. Finally we are governed by rhythm: the regular rhythm of the human- beats, of breathing, of succeeding days and nights and as indeed of all the other vital rhythms as those of the oscillating atoms and the planets etc.

I believe the work of B.S Chadha responds to all that which is rhythmic, vital and structural in the world, and this means that the artist instinctively bears witness to the basic physical principles of root reality. His work may or not be short on technical rigour as in peak moments of art craft, yet his instincts are sounds. And these are the true substance of his spirals, curvilinear forms and other variations, especially those got up in commanding reds and allied hues. An artist of this genre does what in another art form, like the dance, the dancer does. There is sheer joy in describing circles and the figures of whirling eights.

As a craftsman of the finger- tips, Chadha appears to be in constant search among the myriad forms, structures, and variations of color in nature that reveal to us the particular aspects and degrees of rhythms and structures to which human sensibility responds.

Each artist is a specialist in looking one way or another, and B.S. Chadha has his temperament gifted with special aims, ideals, visions and methods of works, and which must be understood if they are to be respected. It matters not if Chadha is “well known” or not as an ace art marksman. First things first, for his heart, in matters of art, is in the right place. His offering quickens the pace of our blood stream from to time, and which also means the interplay of muscular tensions and relaxations in our body and its sensors. When this happens to happen to our physiology our spirit also comes alive. The choice works of Chadha, do precisely that at a good many moments. So draw your own conclusions!

Keshav Malik ( Padam Shri Awardee) Govt. of India
Art Critic-New Deh-lhi India
Baljit’s paintings ‘divine flowers’ depict his intense love for ‘Nature’.
The beautiful flowers are the best creations of the creator.
Manmohan .K.Chadha
Art connoisseur/writer

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September 10th, 2021

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