Olivia Fraser’s exhibition explores meditation through geometric forms

“Looking astatine creation is an active, reciprocal engagement betwixt the representation and the viewer,” says creator Olivia Fraser.

That thought of quiescent contemplative speech betwixt artwork, spectator and the earthy satellite runs done A Journey Within, Fraser’s existent solo accumulation astatine the British Council successful New Delhi. On presumption till March 25, the accumulation brings unneurotic a enactment of works that gully from Indian miniature coating traditions portion exploring themes of meditation, breath, and interior landscapes.

Olivia, who was calved successful London and raised successful the Scottish Highlands, has lived successful Delhi since the aboriginal 1990s. Over the years she has travel to beryllium known for her modern interpretations of miniature painting, a signifier she archetypal encountered during an apprenticeship with maestro painters successful Rajasthan. Olivia continues to usage accepted methods, including finely layered brushwork and pigments crushed from earthy stones. She is joined to writer William Dalrymple.

At archetypal glance, Olivia’s paintings look acold removed from the communicative scenes often associated with miniature painting. Instead of royal courts oregon mythological figures, her canvases are built from geometric patterns, repeated motifs and luminous fields of colour. Yet she sees them arsenic profoundly connected to the miniature tradition, peculiarly the scenery elements that signifier the backgrounds of galore Rajput paintings.

“In the Ragamala tradition, Nature, space, rhythm, and colour make a temper wrong which an full aesthetic acquisition tin unfold,” explains Olivia implicit email. She is funny successful bringing those landscapes to the forefront. Trees, flowers, bees, serpents, mountains and h2o look successful her enactment not arsenic literal depictions but arsenic fragments of a ocular vocabulary that she rearranges and multiplies. The effect is simply a meditative geometry that echoes the rhythms of Nature.

The accumulation besides marks a collaboration with dependable artiste Jason Singh, whose site-responsive installation expands the acquisition beyond the visual. Jason uses a process known arsenic bio-sonification, converting the electrical signals produced by plants, trees and fungi into sound. These integrated frequencies are combined with tract recordings gathered from ineffable sites successful India, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

The soundscape reflects the rhythms that Olivia herself describes arsenic cardinal to her practice. Painting successful the miniature contented requires slow, deliberate strokes, and Olivia says enactment becomes an indispensable portion of the process. “You person to respire into the bushed of the strokes,”

she says. The cautious pacing of her enactment finds a parallel successful Jason’s dependable compositions, which construe earthy pulses into philharmonic patterns.

Olivia’s paintings are besides informed by classical Indian texts. Several works successful the accumulation gully inspiration from the Gheranda Samhita, a yogic manual written successful the aboriginal 18th Century. One conception describes a meditation signifier successful which the practitioner imagines a “sublime water of nectar” and an land filled with flowering trees, birds, and buzzing bees. That sensory landscape, affluent with imagery of pomegranates, lotuses, fish, and serpentine movement, reappears successful her canvases.

One of the cardinal works successful the accumulation is simply a triptych titled 1000 Petalled Lotus. The lotus, a recurring awesome successful yogic philosophy, represents expanded consciousness. In Olivia’s interpretation, a achromatic lotus sits astatine the centre of the painting, its petals radiating outward successful rhythmic waves. The colours displacement subtly betwixt achromatic and white, what Olivia describes arsenic signifying some the lack of colour and the beingness of each colours. “The cardinal achromatic lotus is simply a spot of stillness retired of which its 1,000 petals radiate pulsing and ever shifting successful a continuous rhythmic enlargement creating a feeling, an emotion, a rasa of endlessness — of infinity,” she says.

While steeped successful past and tradition, Olivia sees her signifier arsenic offering a quiescent counterpoint to the gait of modern life. Grinding pigments by manus and gathering up layers slowly, she says, encourages a antithetic benignant of attention. The enactment of coating becomes a signifier of meditation successful itself.

The accumulation besides reflects a broader thought recovered successful Indian aesthetics: that the arts are profoundly interconnected. Olivia points to a transition successful the Vishnudharmottara Purana, successful which a sage tells a king that 1 cannot genuinely recognize coating without knowing music, creation and song. That rule shaped the opening of the exhibition, which included a show bringing unneurotic dancer and writer Tishani Doshi with musicians and Jason’s dependable work.

Presented nether the British Council’s Culture Connects programme and organised successful concern with Nature Morte, A Journey Within reflects ongoing taste exchanges betwixt India and the United Kingdom. Olivia hopes that viewers walk clip with the works alternatively than simply passing done the gallery. The paintings, with their cautiously repeated forms and subtle shifts incolour, invitation a slower benignant of looking.

A Journey Within is connected presumption astatine British Council, 17 Kasturba Gandhi Marg till March 25