JOIN USThe concepts of ‘time’ and ‘moments’ have never been easy to define in words, even for the best of litterateurs and poets; so one can imagine what a quandary it would present for an artist if she were to portray time and moments on canvas.
For Aarti Zaveri, though, her latest exhibition of paintings ‘Time and moments’ has come so naturally, one would imagine she ‘sees’ moments as they pass by. Three-dimensional scenes in space, glasses tipping over with water, Victorian watches and human shadows define time and moments for Aarti.
A native of Rajkot, Gujarat, Aarti describes herself as an artist obsessed with fantasies and imaginations, “I have always been keen to depict human emotions, state of emancipation from fear, failures and voids. These are difficult to put down in a painting especially if you are not taking the help of human figures all the time, but the mind’s eye does conjure up images for such feelings. I take the help of the same.”
Time has always fascinated her, she says, “I often ask myself, ‘Do we, human beings, create time or are we the creations of the times we live in?’ Everything that we see, is an illusion created by time. For example, when we see stars in the night sky, we feel they are real. But the fact is that the stars we see may have died ages back and the light is its aura which is still travelling. Time is a magical entity.”
That magic shines through in her paintings. Grey backgrounds denote bottomless, timeless voids like the eternal universe. On this, clocks tick away, glasses of water tip over, numbers appear like disjointed characters and human figures seem to be in undying yearning. Symbols like Feng-shui pop up besides human hands, as if wanting to reach out for something.
Aarti has also played with colours beautifully. Some elements carry rainbow colours as if denoting the spectrum of life. She informs us, “I adore colours. They nurse the power to fight monotony, desolation and despairs created by life. They are an antithesis to time and cut the dullness
created it.”