Just can't work in black and white, there's no fun in that: Artist Vinita Karim

The imaginary spaces featuring clusters of houses against robust skies, and sometimes beautifully coloured streams or rivers, are products of Karim's entire life, which she has, quite literally, lived out of a suitcase.

From fiery oranges and yellows, myriad shades of blue, to black, green, rich hues of red and even copper, silver and gold, Dhaka-based Vinita Karim's canvases are a glorious riot of colour.

"I love colours. I just can't work in black and white. There is no fun in that," Karim said.

Her latest solo show, a new collection of abstract cityscapes titled "Magical Musings", are on display at the Gallerie Ganesha here.

The 22 paintings, created in the last five years, replicate fantastical cities in the artist's mind on to the canvas. The exhibition also showcases eight sculptures, which she not sculpted but painted.

The imaginary spaces featuring clusters of houses against robust skies, and sometimes beautifully coloured streams or rivers, are products of Karim's entire life, which she has, quite literally, lived out of a suitcase.

Karim, 56, was born in Burma, went to school in Germany, Pakistan and Sudan owing to her father’s job as an Indian diplomat. She also lived in Kuwait, Stockholm, Cairo and Manila before getting married to a Bangladeshi and settling down in Dhaka.

As she travelled from one city to another, each place left a mark. She imbibed their spirits that got intertwined in her head, giving birth to cities of her own.

"It was not just travelling for me. I was living in these cities. And when you live in a city, you become very intimate with its culture and people.

"The best thing is that all these different cultures also get embedded in your own psyche," Karim told PTI.

The artist is a fan of all things layered, and her paintings are no exception.

Sometimes they are layered with different painting techniques, at other times she uses different media -- acrylic, oil, embroidery etc - to tier her works.

"My works are layered -- literally the layers are the geographies, histories and the cultures of different places, and physically they are the paints, lines, embroidery," said the artist, who is exhibiting her works in Delhi after 10 years.

Her rendition of the holy city of Varanasi, for instance, is overwhelmingly rich, particularly the waters.

She uses impasto, a technique where one paints with a palette knife, to render almost a three dimensional texture to the Ganges river in the painting.

The painting made using acrylic, gold and copper on linen, is colourfully chaotic in its juxtaposition of the multi-layered blues of the river, with multi-coloured boats.

"Like I have a lot of different roles -- of an artist, a mother, a wife, similarly in my painting I want to use different media. I don't want a single flat painting. Instead, it needs to have depth in it."

"I need my works to be layered because they represent many histories combined with a lot of my imagination," Karim said.

Oil is her favourite medium even if it takes longer to dry out.

"It is rich, soft and offers a distinctive depth to the works," Karim said.

She recreates similar imaginary cities with her work on sculptures too, at the risk of making a viewer feel her work was repetitive, but not in a boring way, largely because of the judicious use of colours.

Magical Musings will continue at Gallerie Ganesha here till January 5.

(With inputs from agencies.)