Painting & printing emotions and expressions: Artist Kavita Nayar expresses herself in different mediums

Nonika Singh

Subconsciously, unknowingly, renowned artist Kavita Nayar has learnt how to sublimate her pain and transform it into works of beauty, joy and deep contemplation. She doesn’t know if ‘great pain leads to great art’. But as she looks back at the devastating phase when she lost her 23-year-old daughter Sakshi, she knows God gave her the strength to carry on. Her vocabulary altered. Instead of gloom becoming the leitmotif, she found colour: “When you lose colour in your life, you start looking outwards for it.” Interestingly, while her palette became vibrant, her journey turned inwards. Her latest series, ‘Transcendence’, focuses on the metaphysical and eternal truths of regeneration, renewal and the cycle of life.

In 2008, when tragedy struck, she began visualising her daughter in flowers. Lotus was a recurring metaphor, though for a short while, as she does not care to repeat herself. Be it the ‘Fury’ or ‘Pathos’ series or ‘Manuscripts’, the moment these begin to capture the imagination of art connoisseurs, she knows it’s time to reflect upon a new thought. Her works, however, are not transitory but in permanent collections. An etching from her ‘Manuscripts’ series made it to Panchvati Hall in the Prime Minister’s home during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s tenure. The work still adorns the walls of the PM’s residence and is often the background of many a VIP photo-op. There have been more encouragements in the past, like the selection of her print by the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, when she was just 22.

Nayar’s stints and experiences at Santiniketan, Delhi College of Art, a Charles Wallace scholarship that took her to London and another one to France, have certainly shaped her artistic impulses. She recalls, “At Santiniketan, where I did my BFA in printmaking, I was kind of laidback. The French scholarship opened the world of great art which, till then, we had just read about in college books. It was like I was coming out of my cocoon and hereafter my works became bolder.”

To begin with, her expression was figurative abstract. She dwelt upon the Navarasa theory, in particular the vibhats and karuna ras, which came alive in her series ‘Fury’ and ‘Pathos’. As a trained dancer in Kathakali, this, too, has informed her works and deepened her understanding of the nine rasas. These rasas come into her works rather organically, be it ‘Aquatic Energy’, the trigger for which lay in the tsunami, or ‘Pathless Path’, which is a chronicle of Covid days.

Today, meditative calm prevails in her oil pastels, a medium that is as unforgiving as brimming with possibilities. To her etchings, she gives a painterly effect and the symbiotic harmony in her series, ‘Seeds of Love’ and ‘Blooms of Love’, takes us to a subliminal level of awareness and consciousness. Energy is mysterious, sublime and moves and blooms in myriad fashion. Nature and its deep connect with mankind, especially motherhood, reflects time and again. The mother in her takes birth each time she sets down to create. The umbilical chord she shared with her daughter is alive and tingling, nudging her to help others through Kalasakshi, a trust which supports young artists.

She says wistfully, “Pain can’t be wished away.” But she won’t let it cloud either her imagery or her being. No wonder, both radiate a luminous positivity. As Piet Mondrian said, “Art is the path to being spiritual.” With each work she creates, she realises, “This is me, but not mine.” Can there be a better reflection or summation of self-realisation?

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