Gazala Chinwalla, the glamour face of Bombay Dyeing in the 1970s, settled in New York 26 years ago trading the modelling world for a career in fashion, hospitality and banking industries. Always interested in art she qualified at the Parson’s School of Art and School of Visual Arts and did reproductions of the Master’s, selling her work privately.
“Living in New York”, says Gazala, “has many advantages. It has the best in art and there is tremendous exposure. My travels to Spain and Italy, inspired my painting landscapes.” Using bold colours, which remind her of India, her style changes according to her mood, it could be portraiture, landscape, or abstracts.
In 2005, Gazala did a fashion show in Mumbai, to raise money for HIV victims, incorporating an art show with Sushmita Sen walking the ramp, and got a tremendous response. She quit the corporate mill, to concentrate on painting and in less than two years has carved a niche.
Her paintings were previewed by Crimson Art Resource on October 3. Designing clothes and painting are individualistic projections of an artist. Gazala finds “More pleasure in painting, because its about me, no one can interfere. Garments, involve many people to complete the ensemble, in painting its only about me.”
The walls of the gallery vibrated with the colours of twenty seven paintings. Guests could relate to the titles Winter in the Village, Blue Woods and Purple Forest among others. The light effects looked alive, the surrealistic reflections, merging of prime colours, blue houses with black and white roofs, red houses with black roofs.
Unlike the shadows of daylight, the nightscapes in black and grey swell with lyrical projection, the beauty of the distilled embers of light, shadows and space. “I took a photograph at night, and did this one named ‘Midnight,’ Gazala pointed out. Interspersed are portraitures, ‘Woman with Lilacs,’ with blends of blue, purple, red background, dramatises the red face of a woman.
Among the guests, Urmila Devi, Ann Warrior, Shaheen and Jimmy, Jyoti, Rita and Rubi, Veena Kumar from Delhi, commended the colour pallete and the intricate texturing with influences of Van Gogh.
Gazala, has been invited for the prestigious Biennale Contemporary Art show in Florence, starting December 1 among the 52 international artists. “When I got the invitation, I thought it was a joke, this exposure is going to be huge”, she beamed . A panel of judges decide on the artists, Gazala is among the few chosen from the web. The paintings are on display till October 24 at Crimson Art Resources, Hatworks Boulevard.
