Have you ever been inside a work of art? No really, I mean it. And a work of ‘visual’ art, not architecture or even a sculpture; traditional format of painting on paper, not a digitally projected film?

Well, I happened to immerse myself in just that!...at Unfoldings: The Route Map of Experience presented at Kiran Nadar Museum of Art at its NOIDA campus. Artist Jayashree Chakravarty started off her career as a painter. Her early works were bold and expressionist in style. But her desire to create a “continuous imagery in a painterly way” led her to work on scrolls. What is fascinating is that Chakravarty creates her own paper. Working out of a small studio space, the entire process of making is tedious at one level, but has also influenced how she has approached the work itself. The act of rolling and unrolling the painted paper, every day, accentuated the idea of a scroll for Chakravarty. Conceptually, her work has multi-layered references. The form itself evokes a sense of cave with painted rocks. The structure feels sturdy, as though made with building materials like cement and limestone. Chakravarty is interested in the study of the ‘inside’. She grew up with her father who was a doctor. He would regularly engage with x-ray images while examining his patients. This intrigued her. The idea of home and containment, time and layers are recurring themes in her practice.  

Dichotomies are also at play. A robust looking construction, defies fragility of paper. The imagery seems spontaneous and without a premeditated plan, and yet there are intricate details to be discovered. A singular work that can be viewed as a whole, however demands a patient viewing, as though of a large exhibition with multiple works. This installation is energising and calming at the same time.

I sit inside the enveloping installation over a conversation with Roobina Karode, Director and Chief Curator of the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art to discover the nuances of the practice of Jayashree Chakravarty.