"Interwoven Realms"...By Dhanashri Sujit Deshmukh

In a world where social, political, cultural and religious pursuits clash head-on with each other to result in total unrest;

A world where social distancing and social discrimination become analogous, the common human is like a rudder-less, sail-less boat caught in a tornado. Like Turner’s ship wrecks, the lives of the people today, are a reminder of storms endured, some staying afloat, others sunk to the pits of no return. In a disrupted, shattered world, art is the voice and the vision of contemporary reality. It breaks through veils of two-faced diaphanous sophistication, tears open the innards of itself, to reveal the broken, the wrecked, the enduring, the healing, indomitable Self. 

Untitled 4, Mixed media on Canvas, Size - 60"x 48", Year- July 2024

Untitled 6, Mixed media on Canvas, Size - 10"x 8", Year- Sep 2023

At the heart of the works of artist Dhanashri Deshmukh is a self-awareness which dons the cloak of abstraction. Seemingly autobiographical in nature, these works could be seen as self portraitures using a non-objective lexicon. It has been seen in art history that the non-objective/abstract lexicon became the chosen vocabulary of those artists who were silently protesting or dissenting a regime or a time or those who were repelled by the monotony of the known form/figure. The burden of form, shape and familiarity was shed and a new way forward was being broached by the Impressionists, the Cubists and the Surrealists. This is how the seeds of Abstract Expressionism took root, to be able to bring forth an artistic style which embodies the artist’s mind and the situation it is housed in, without the use of overtly figurative elements.   

Visually the works of Dhanashri may carry a sprinkling of Jackson Pollock’s heavily layered works, but in philosophy they stand with the deep, responsive works of Mark Rothko or the psychologically laden works of the Surrealists. The logic being, Dhanashri depicts her social/psychological/personal/political experiences through her works, without the aid of figuration. In doing so, she does use a number of unconventional elements like plasters, gauze, cloth, fabric, on the canvas to bring out the effects of wounds, scars and difficult thoughts. Some of the works hint at the concepts of Suprematism and Kazimir Malevich’s black square series. However mosaic like the works may appear, they draw our on a singular narrative which the artist herself strongly imprints on to her medium of expression.

 

Untitled 3, Mixed media on Canvas, Size - 4"x 4", Year- Jan 2024

Untitled 8, Mixed media on Canvas, Size - 2"x 2", Year- July 2023

In a society where an individual lives a fragmented life, playing numerous roles, social, political or personal, Dhanashri drives the imbalance and even the conflicts generated within her psyche into her work. These roles could be gentle and harmonious, yet create inner psychological conflicts, and even contrast with the very essence of freedom and the need to feel unburdened. The heaviness of the layers, the deep gashes on the gauze or plaster which gives deep relief to the works, the cuts, the slashes that one sees goes beyond a mere ‘texturising’ technique, bringing into focus the emotion with which they are made.  
Abstraction is an active process, the art is not just embedded only within the completed work, its relevance lies in the journey of reaching the said completion. Much like uncovering a fossil from the annals of the earth to be able to glean the living organism which walked the earth millions of years ago, abstraction is the process which is evolutionary and active through out its formation and beyond. Some times abstraction embeds itself in the thought behind the work, an ideology which is so ephemeral that it needs no ground to anchor itself upon. It can remain suspended in the realm between belief and disbelief. Abstraction in Dhanashri’s works suspends itself from such heights and depths. Like the unending roots of a plant in a lake, embedded deep within the soil under the water body, the artist’s works anchor deep within her mind and experiential repertoire to bring to the surface mere glimpses of her lived experiences.

Untitled 11, Mixed media on Canvas, Size - 60"x 48", Year- July 2024

Untitled 1, Mixed media on Canvas, Size - 70"x 60", Year- July 2024

In some of her recent works, the artist has chosen to use fabric to literally bandage the work, as if it were injured or wounded. This could be a view of how she interprets today’s world, the state of a societies which are ruptured and toggling between stability and instability, a kind of push and pull of expectations from any and every angle. The binding element of pure white holds this fragile fragmented human together, like a mummified existence of a live being, these works are more globally relevant than others, especially where wars and political, social, economic and civic unrest dominates. Dhanashri’s works begin to slowly become polemical when seen through this lens.  

Some of the works are held together by a thread, where the stitch could be a literal stitch of a wound or a mental one, as in a society holding on by a thread. As the onslaught of pandemics, political unrests, wars, economic dichotomies, intellectual and religious fanaticisms, take its toll on humans all over the world, Dhanashri’s works articulate these issues in the most subtle yet vociferous of ways.     

Artist: Dhanashri Sujit Deshmukh

 

It is important to mention the artist’s choice of palette, which is like that of an Impressionist’s; she chooses to engage with the light and dark, juxtaposed with the neutral and the murky. This positioning of light and dark shades alongside neutrality could be seen as a social, collective pursuit of a populace in search of light in dark, noncommittal times. It also could be seen as the intimate solitudinous journey of realising one’s true purpose in life. Dhanashri’s works throw light on the secrets embedded within any common person today, in doing so she reveals the contrasting multifarious layers of acceptance and dissent, revolt and conformity, despair and hope existing in today’s human beings. Like a lighthouse indicating land ahead to ships and boats at sea, artist Dhanashri Deshmukh’s works become beacons of light reassuring those who are floating in life trying to find their safe, firm ground.  

 Sushma Sabnis  

ArtCritic/Curator  

Mumbai