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Colourfully frozen Nature in a flux

— Photo: T. Singaravelou

ART EXPO: Artist Lakshmi Dutt at the exhibition.

PUDUCHERRY: “Everything around us is in constant motion … the wind, the sun, the sea, the sky, the clouds, the birds and even the land beneath us… I wanted to show that movement in my paintings,” explained artist Lakshmi Dutt, who has taught art in France for the last 33 years.

“Life is always about movement. Nothing around us is still and we artists take in everything from nature around us. I have portrayed my inner feelings through my brush onto the canvas using acrylic colours and adding black to show depth,” says the artist whose paintings titled “Inner scape” is currently exhibited at Aurodhan Art Gallery at 33, Rue Francois Martin in Kuruchikuppam.

This is her first painting exhibition after 33 years. Using acrylic and ink and silk she has brought in a kind of 3D effect in these paintings, a portion of which she painted bent over them. She has held 10 exhibitions in India, 16 in France and one in Israel.

“I first did the colours and then did the black on top of that using a big brush. I had to work very rapidly with flexible hand movements. I worked on these paintings every Sunday for the past few months and this is my first exhibition of paintings,” she said.

Having completed her degree at the School of Fine Arts in Delhi, she obtained a scholarship from the French Government in 1968 to study colour viscosity. “I am basically a graphic artist and specialise in engraving. It is one art that has still retained most of its traditional ways. But I have taught fine arts, portraits and drawing designs and doing portraits is my hobby,” she said.

“My work is instinctively related to Nature. A fork of lighting, a bright landscape, the crevices of rocks, the filigree of a flower – all seem to catch my interior gaze. My engravings try to capture this blossoming, this avalanche, this explosion of natural forces.”

An expert in engraving and silk screen printing, she conducts regular workshops in France. Born in a family of artists from Agra and now settled Delhi, she is married to Pascal De la Manche, who is from Puducherry. The exhibition will be on till October 20.

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