Artist Bheem Malhotra tells Sharang Bhaskaran that watercolour is the most difficult medium to use
The most remarkable thing about the paintings of Bheem Malhotra is his love for and intimate understanding of nature, and a simple, yet unique style of reproducing it on the canvas with watercolours. His affinity with nature gives his paintings a quality of realism that has the ability to disengage the viewer from his spot and transport him to the heart of the scene. Malhotra, whose works are being exhibited at New Delhi’s Shridharani Art Gallery in Triveni Kala Sangam, shared with us some insights on his works and his inspiration. Almost a reflection of his own personality, his artwork is an insight into him. He admits that his personality is very close to that of his paintings and that he loves the serenity of nature and keeps going back to it to look for ideas to paint. “I love to capture the different moods of nature.
I like to paint what it looks like during different times of the year, during different seasons,” he explained. And what makes watercolours his favourite choice to paint withIJ “Watercolor is the toughest medium to work with,” confessed Malhotra. “But I also find it the most spontaneous, sensitive and transparent medium,” he added. Waving his hand towards his paintings, Malhotra said, “There is an exhilarating freedom and joy that you experience when using water colors.” His expertise in using watercolours and his masterful strokes give a distinctive visual quality to his painting that very few contemporary artists are able to achieve. “I like to play with the colours and textures in my paintings. If you see the way I paint rain or mist in paintings, you will notice that it is quite different from the way other artists paint it,” he stated.
A most noticeably impressive quality of his paintings is also his unbiased use of colours. In his paintings, we see bright oranges, yellows, and reds as much as blues, blacks and greys. Malhotra, with his prowess as a watercolourist, gives a larger-than-life quality to most of his paintings using texturing and tones that bring out the colours in a remarkable way. At times, his works are very close to abstracts.
Some of his paintings fuse nature and abstract colouring to give it a quality of abstract realism that transports the viewer to another place making it almost a surreal experience.
Also, particularly beautiful is the way he captures still life, dogs being his favourite subjects. A self-confessed dog lover, he says that dogs make one of the most interesting subjects for paintings. Even in his paintings of nature, dogs make appearances in the background frequently. His use of colour and tone make his still life compositions come to life and give otherwise inanimate objects such as a bench or a tree, a certain character. “I keep observing everything around me, people, objects, anything and end up painting them. If you are a good observer and just look around you, you won’t run out of subjects for your paintings,” he said.
A winner of numerous art awards including the AIFACS Golden Jubilee Award in 1997 and Amrita Shergill Award, Malhotra said, “I take up ordinary things to reveal the beauty in them.” Has any painter been a source of inspiration to himIJ “Only nature is my inspiration,” he declared.
The exhibition of the artist, Malhotra, at Triveni Kala Sangam is till May, 12.