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| JOURNEY
TO THE LIGHT |
| By Saurabh Bhattacharya A single look at Indian artist Monju Karmakar's enchanting paintings could trigger off a lifetime's search for the Self  There
is wistfulness in the young painter's eyes. She gazes at her work, as if she is
looking at fragments of a dream dreamt lifetimes ago. "You know," she turns towards
you and says in sudden animation, "I have lived a thousand years before this existence.
And with each birth, I have taken a step further in evolution." You wish to know
the aim of her evolution. The wistfulness returns. She turns back towards a dreamscape
where a nude woman is merging with the cosmos and whispers: "Aim? I'm not sure.
Perhaps it is going towards the light, where the Ultimate is."That, in essence, is Monju Karmakar, a painter based in New Delhi, India, who is seeking her own self through the mystique of colors. What results from this journey are paintings whose depths captivate you. Monju does not deny this. "Every work of mine is a part of me," she says, gently stroking a frame with her eyes. "Whenever a painting is over, I feel refreshed. But the process itself is full of so much pain, as if my soul is being wrenched out from my being." Perhaps that is what gives her paintings their otherworldly tenor. If in one, lovers recline on top of the earth, in another Nature transmutes into a human form. As one canvas shows a woman balancing a crystal globe on her finger, perhaps seeking in it the synchronicity of life, another depicts the upward journey of human consciousness. |
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