REVIEWS

Like games in the series Aarti Zaveri in her artworks depicts a puzzle adventure game split across various episodes. We as spectators are asked to act as players to explore areas and converse with characters to help solve the mysteries that lay before us. At various ends in her paintings, the audience/player will encounter puzzles that need to be solved. There was a segment when Aarti showcased a solo show “Pehchaan” and about the theme of the show she quotes that “Pehchaan on retrospection depicted through mask is trying to convey that everyone carries a great light within, and one needs to introspect and discover their own center.” Keeping this creed in mind she walks ahead with a new series of painting where she juxtapose mask with jigsaw puzzle; this was another dimension to her creation.

She has a set of unique though process to evolve her artworks that are expanded upon as like a player solves puzzles. Looking at her paintings it feels like we are the players, navigating a maze in order to reach a goal panel whilst avoiding enemies.

Life itself is a jigsaw puzzle and it is said that everyone wears a mask in ones life at one point of time. But when the “jigsaw puzzle” and the “mask” is observed in Aarti’s paintings a very positive effervescence is reflected. Her paintings lead us to a pious route where each individual can see oneself as a part of the painting; as if “we” are present as the “subject” in her artworks. Aarti’s approach is almost like the “mirror technique” which is one of the tools that psychologists have used to test the level of self-consciousness. She tries to articulate and questions the audience as to how well do we know ourselves? Are we always trying to figure ourselves out? The internal focus on your thoughts, feelings, motivations, and overall sense of “self” is reflected in her artworks where she coalesce human images, masks and jigsaw puzzle. Her painting titled “True Face” explains that when you look within, you are privately self-conscious, but if you look within a little too much, you are privately spaced-out. Aarti portrays the jigsaw puzzle depicted in her paintings as a metaphor of life. In the beginning when one opens up a box of jigsaw puzzle one notices that there are so many pieces and it can be hard to figure out where to start. She tries to speak through her paintings that one needs to create a plan and start the journey. She elucidate through her paintings that many people start a puzzle by doing the outside pieces first.

Some will sort the pieces into colours, others may sort them into spaces, but no matter how many pieces there are it all starts when the first piece is in place and the puzzle gets put together one piece at a time. Her idea behind the paintings is portray that the journey of solving a puzzle is like a life journey. As one purchage a game of jigsaw puzzle we usually know what the final product is going to look like, but Aarti renders that one have to go through the effort of placing ‘each pieces’ (which she symbolically depicts as journey of life ) into its rightful position; there should not be any short cuts. She represents the jigsaw pieces and its placements as every step of progress we make in life.

Sometimes a piece is just a piece and it falls into place effortlessly, other times a particular piece brings great satisfaction. Her creation reflects that the jigsaw puzzles which are bonded together are something special which seems to happen when there is different bonding amongst people. Its seems like an eternity, the pieces start to fall in to place rapidly.

When we look at the colours on Aarti’s palette we get two feelings/effect; a purely physical effect on the eye, charmed by the beauty of the bright vibrant colours which indeed provoke a joyful impression. Secondly, the effect of bright colours is much deeper and causes an emotion and a vibration of the soul, which is purely spiritual effect. She loves to apply bright colours on the canvas as it reflects the bright sunny side of life. Aarti quotes that “Between Back and White, I imagine that colours come within. Black and White itself is sophisticated whereas other colours are urben in itself.”

She also mentions that “Places like Rajasthan and Gujrat are more colourful when it comes to festivals and costumes because geographically it is situated in desert area, so a touch of bright colours adds life to the environment.” She use bright colours and explores every possibilities to portray her images. Her work process goes with the flow of her thoughts. Sometimes ideas emerge gradually through the mundane life she is enveloped in, at other time she under goes through a long thinking process for days before she starts exploring her visual concepts on the canvas. Her works emerge from personal quest and for which the most suitable medium and material that expresses her ‘self’ is oil colours on canvas. The experimental journal of her in context to art is a long way; the shifting of themes from mask to jigsaw puzzles was a challenging voyage as she is expected to show the colour of life through these subject matters.

To conclude this mediation on the current works of Aarti Zaveri , I am drawn back to the latest series on subject matters like Jigsaw Puzzles and Masks on the fact of it these themes may seem a little presumptuous. We are after all, in an art world of the 21st century, what does it have to with a journey of life, and spirituality? But in assessing about what the journey of life, and spirituality could be i.e. a direction toward spirituality, righteousness, a secret path, a direction toward the union of oneself with the Devine, or a “path of learning” or a “path of art”. What is it that this “path” is of such vital importance to our lives? Surely it is not the material things which she represents, but rather the “ideas” with which they are merged in such significant form, ideas about the very essence of life. One is driven to examine, not only the works themselves, but also the relationship the artist has with it, during its fabrication and when it is finished.

Dr.Meghali Goswami, Asst.professor,Department of Fine Arts, Assam University Silchar