"Sliver of Time" is the name of exhibition of paintings by painter Kota Neelima and photographs of Anuj Parti.

"Sliver of Time" is the name of exhibition of paintings by painter Kota Neelima and photographs of Anuj Parti. Organised at The Travencore Place, the exhibition was inaugurated by Smt. Shiela Dixit (Hon'ble Chief Minister, Delhi) recently. On the opening ceremony along with Shiela Dixit, Kota Neelima, Anuj Parti & his mother, Shikha Sharma, K.V.S. Rama Sharma, Rajeev Sethi, Raja Reddy, Kaushalya Reddy, Yashodhraraje Sindhiya, Latika Dixit and Pawan Khera were also present there.

SLIVER OF TIME

It is a thin layer of memory. Out of place in present. Too early for future. Too late for past. It is easy to confuse the past with the future because both meet for a moment in the present. But how is one to know that this moment is indeed the present, if it is already passing on into the past? The synapse of memory in the brain is already forming for this passing moment. But what if the moment is frozen now, before it turns future into past?

It will be a very thin layer of memory. Of clouds before they become waves. Of lotuses before they return to the depth. Of waters resting before they turn into rain. Of that layer of time which exists only for one heart beat. In the next beat, it would have formed a memory, unchangeable, forever.

But for now, it belongs neither to present, past nor future. It does not even belong to time. In time, however, it will be finally lost. Here is that precious layer of memory in paintings and photographs, colours and pigments, the only means pure enough to qualify for this momentary mischief. For, it is a moment stolen from time. A moment that the future gave up and the past has not yet claimed.

LIGHT AND ITS MYRIAD FORMATIONS

Each of these recent paintings explores and dives into a separate wavelength of colour…yet the patterns of her poetic voice reign. For the moments incarnate which decipher her metaphors of fecund flora, still life-scapes, and the abstract of the natural realm, hang as one as the symphony unfolds. Nonetheless, it is important to step back and absorb this raga with space, as the juxtaposition of each piece could confuse the novitiate.

The artist speaks of kaala, the timelessness of her work. In each unfolds a conscious exploration from the clouds to myriad dimensions of that which she names ‘depth’. Such that strong, albeit discursive spectrums range from the highest to the lowest reign. To manage within a single series to embrace that which a single being aims to sense, both as a creative and vital force. Like a 19th century photographer (John Thomson) who first captured simultaneously the clouds and the land in a single glass plate negative frame, paralleling a dancer whose arms sweep in an arc of 360 degrees, the expanse of a panoramic lens. She lives surrounded by a natural dimension, which she has nurtured. So, in her work do these sensibilities come alive through other than pure green tonalities? One sees fuchsias, blues of the sea and sky. …Small interstices within larger compositions glean this idea of slivers of time. For as the metaphors of moonlight (unable to be possessed, ephemeral) are inherent to essential creativity and atomistic prowess so does her exploration carry one from the land-locked to the mountain range to the limitless lands of one’s sensorial lexicon.

Stillness, at once vibrancy, the artist’s strokes defy categorization. In one work, there is exuberance, with spans of realms of eternity. However, in another, she addresses the superficies of shallowness of the so-called surface. This work embraces at once, no matter what stage, this shadowing stretch of vision. An extreme burst, from tonal hues within one semi-abstract work, towards another in pure chromatic exploration – blues, reds, greens (very few, albeit ironically that she lives surrounded by the myriad caprices of the verdure kingdom to burgeon with such a force), ochre, creams and gilded tangerine, browns of earth and bark, shades of turmeric and goldenrod and yellow, pinks and purples complete the equations.

What is expressed in Liquid Glass or Corridors of Light - the depths of the silence of the stroke of the brush, which at another moment can be as vibrant as the rush of white water running. Metaphors of time are at work within and betwixt these canvases, such as Order and Claims of Water. Her earlier series in 2006, entitled the echoing life of nature, bring to mind this incessant searching to meld the nature-scape, the nature morte, and the ethereal/surreal landscape, cum transcendent imagery. There speaks a desire to render the intangible, what has concrete natural life, but passes through our existence in seasonal unfolding. To consider – the abstract and figurative as one and the same, as life purports to do. Conscious and unconscious, the perceived and the intuitive, touched and felt. Five senses swell to multifarious renditions like chords and octaves congeal as crescendo. From the minute to the immense, the pattern of a leaf echoes with the ripple of water, the vein of a tree.

These works conjure a momentary pause, as if between breaths, placing one foot before another, a step from nature’s sunsets to sunrises, when the pastels and flames fuse at once. Just as for those who sail who understand, as do cinematographers, the meaning of the phrase ‘sweet light’ when the sea and land meet in one hue and vanishing perspective. What shall follow as this artist hones her craft and vision in the future shall be a pleasure to encounter, as her brushes focus more contently on the pulse of energy, and she find her voice.