A lot of science goes into her art. She mixes chemical compounds, welding metals, cast glass… In Hemi Bawa’s work, you see art and science coming together. Intentionally or unintentionally, Hemi Bawa makes you ponder on the science in art and the art in science.

Her latest show in Chennai had a range of cast glass works. The plano versions of it had just a sliver of glass superimposed on copper sheets, which Bawa has worked on with chemical compounds combined with the copper to create a range of shades from golden dawn to deep shades of green. These works evoke moods more than thoughts or concepts. And since they are just multi-toned rather than multi-coloured, they aid in creating a background space of a single, particular mood, rather than effecting a confluence of emotions and thoughts.

The sculptures
There were also pure cast glass sculptures, three dimensional glass sculptures and also the plano ones that you could hang on walls, like paintings or murals. In her various works, Hemi has attempted photo transfers on glass, embedded copper before firing, and also embedded cutouts of metal figures in glass. Then, there were the installation pieces with cast glass blocks heaped over and interspersed with glass boxes. The glass boxes display silhouettes with the help of illumination from inside. They are pillar-like in over-all form, and the glass and marble combination has worked well here, especially as they have been highlighted in places by black bands, which go on to match the effect of the silhouettes.

With cast glass, don’t expect a solid glass piece, the glass equivalent of stone sculptures. Cast glass takes in a lot more dynamics. They are a totally different medium. “It can also be exhaustive, but it is a thrilling medium to work with,” Bawa says. And for her, there is no medium like glass. “It is tough yet delicate; it is transparent, and translucent,” she adds. Bawa prefers to work with cast glass, rather than blown glass. “Cast glass offers scope for layers of meaning. I find blown glass work rather superficial. But it is a personal feeling,” she quickly adds.
Besides cast glass, Bawa combines glass with aluminium, copper, stone and steel, and now, even fibre glass. “I experiment with different add-on materials; if the effect satisfies me, I retain these materials. It is a never ending learning process,” she says. Cast glass is a challenging medium, she admits. The fact that glass is a contemporary material perhaps makes her work more appealing for urban Indians.  

Bawa learnt art at Triveni Kala Sangam. In the early stages of her career, Hemi favoured oil and acrylic on canvas, until of course cast glass caught her fancy. She learnt working with cast glass over workshops conducted abroad. Despite its success abroad, cast glass remains a relatively unexplored medium in India. And having taken to working with cast glass for more than a decade, Bawa remains a pioneer in cast glass sculpture as far as India is concerned, though a few in the country have subsequently taken up this medium. Despite nearing 60, she remains one of those enigmatic artists who keep exploring new vistas. Her works have caught attention around the world, from Hong Kong to Italy.

Photographs
The show also brought out the photographer in Bawa. And more than the cast glass statements, it is these photographs which make deep and powerful statements. Though they have been worked digitally and painted upon as well, these black and white photographs leave a powerful impact on the psyche.

Consisting of a sharp foreground image over a blurred background image, these photographs simulate both emotion and energy. Titled ‘Reflections’, the photographs have been set on black and white mounts, and Bawa has painted images in oil and acrylic on these mounts. Bawa has opted for white images on black mounts and vice versa and they unobtrusively enter the photograph space. Limb gestures and silhouette postures convey emotion while the black and white nexus gets the energy flowing.

Bawa’s work remains rooted in the individual. Her work has been described as being figurative, geometric, and sometimes even architectural at various stages in her career, but, it is the human form in particular, and in a deeper sense, on the human psyche that she has been focusing on all along. Bawa has been very particular in ensuring that the figures do not project either the male or the female entity, but just the concept of a person.
She also doesn’t attempt to make her subjects flow from the canvas into viewer space. Her works retain an air of privacy, a certain detachment from the world around. But for all that, the images evoke thoughts and emotions.