Painter Prafulla’s Journey Into Space

Prafulla is one of the senior-most woman artists of India. In her career spanning more than fifty years, she has traversed life as she painted. Her first painting exhibition in 1962 was a rendition of different moods of music in ‘Ragas’ in pictorial form. Her love for forms and colors was immediately apparent. She went to École des Beaux-Arts in Paris where she learnt to express herself in Lithographs. And there was her first rendition of landscapes! This reflected later on her canvas. She alternated stylized portraits with landscapes for the next few years. When her daughter visited her with her daughter, she painted a series on Mother and Child!

She loved how the monsoon changed the landscape in the hills. This appeared as lush green paintings with waterfalls and congruence of gushing rivers. But as she painted, her landscapes were becoming more and more abstract.

Soon her landscapes turned into just scapes. There was no recognizable land! The scape had no beginning and no end. She began to feel the freedom of form. An appreciating collector said about her work: 

“Open window to space in Prafulla's painting.

What's in her space? It's freedom.

Freedom for mind to escape.

Mindscape

Painting to release mind’s tension into infinite space.

Attain peaceful steady state. Inner Peace” 

She realized where she had reached. She had discovered peace. Peace from the beautiful endless deep space! She explored the new freedom and painted feverishly as she wrote about her painting: 

“My painting depicts the space that I feel. Space is the vast womb of Mother Universe that can take in everything. Comets rage by, Tsunamis come flooding in, Earthquakes shake in anger, even the Stars explode, but space continues to be just as calm. It absorbs the full fury of nature without losing its serenity! My painting is a window for the mind to escape into this peaceful space.” 

In her paintings she had found the window for the mind to escape into space. She had found the means to let her mind explore her inner space. And this window she called Mindscape! She continued to paint Mindscapes, and she wrote: 

"I am at peace when I am ready to paint. I look at the space which opens in my mind. I feel its vibrations.  It is that ageless vastness of space and the nature it manifests. It is a feeling to be absorbed to integrate ourselves in this Universe.   My painting depicts that space which I feel. It is the permanence of space which cannot be destroyed. Whatever happens in the Universe, the space continues. Time passes, matter transforms and ages, but space remains unchanged! It absorbs the full fury of nature without losing its serenity! My painting is a window for the Mind's Escape into this peaceful space: Mindscape. Painting to release mind’s thoughts into that infinite space. Bring peace to your inner self."

Next 2-3 years she kept painting Mindscapes as her mind kept escaping into space! And the inevitable happened. One day she found her space! It was beautiful! She wrote:

 “I began to depict this space in my paintings, which I called ‘Mindscapes’. Through the years these paintings evolved and now they are more than my mindscapes. They are the ‘eternal space’ itself: the sea of tranquility which will take you to eternity. I have now therefore aptly named these evolved paintings ‘Eternal Space’."

She has arrived all the way into space. Her paintings have a play of light and shade, subtle shades of colors which bring depth into her work; but you cannot say which part is closer and which part is farther away. The parts appear to vacillate as you see them with hypnotizing effect. The forms on the painting seem to be moving but with no beginning and with no end. There is no anchor to show where the space is located. It is truly awesome endless space.

She is now preparing for her forthcoming show in Dubai from 1st to 10th November 2008 in the Art Gallery of Majestic Hotel. This is what she has written in her catalogue:

“I believe that to love an object passionately, you have to look at it dispassionately.

And that needs Objectivity; achieved by placing it ‘Light Years’ away.

Distance in space measured in length of time.

Space by itself is infinite. It is timeless. It is Eternal.

That’s my painting showing Timeless Distance: Eternal Space.” 

Prafulla the painter has journeyed long and hard to achieve the exquisite rendering of her inner tranquil space! You can see her work at www prafulla dot com.