SUJATA BAJAJ – SPACESCAPES
Sujata Bajaj’s SPACESCAPES mark a significant turn in the work of an artist with many decades of experience. Taking inspiration from the cosmos, SPACESCAPES is an ongoing series of abstract paintings that embrace colour in its unrestrained form.
Seeking escape from the restrictions imposed by the Coronavirus, Bajaj returned to her longstanding childhood fascination with astronomy, when she would be pulled out of her bed before dawn and taken outside and introduced to stargazing.
With the advent of increasingly detailed images of outer space, Bajaj instinctively understood that the vast universe had something to say: she was seeing something that resonated deeply with a side of her practice she had yet to explore. She saw infinite space, black holes and nebulae of coloured clouds; foggy forms in various hues. Contrary to the common perception of the universe as an expansive darkness dotted with a few stars and planets, this universe was a rich and layered visual experience. Complementing her new understandings of space are Sujata’s various associations with the Northern Lights – an arena where the infinite, ever expanding cosmos bring abstraction and reality into a powerful merge.
SPACESCAPES takes the concept of the universe, an infinite, abstract, fluid concept, as a point of departure. The paintings, dynamic in their construction and colour, express formation and creation on a universal level. In direct contrast to Bajaj’s previous work where colour and energy played out within strong prominent lines, the SPACESCAPES series employs colour in the service of effervescence and constant motion.
By Girish Shahane
