Of wistful meanderings | Unreveated mysteries | alowed wide spaces entwining dimensions The vacuum became hortzon- talLines deciphered. Core looked for its periphery having fallen out from the centre/Searching- The contre or the periphery? (Meena Chopra) he first thing that strikes | you about about Meena Chopra's work is pre- cisely this sense of a quest. There is a searching, a yearn- ing, which reaches out io you from the canvas. Entwined Dimensions, her recent exhi- bition of of! pastel on paper, which opened at Shridharani white paper. Perhaps it Gallery on Thursday, isa cul- _heightonod the quintessential mination of her work over the artistic struggle with space. | last throe years, It also marks Accompanying her paintings departure from the artist's are her verses, and the two previous ventures of ollon complement each other. In canvas, fact, they often seem to flow The meanderings this time from and into each other, are more delicate, distilled making one wonder which, aand refined. There is sense of came first, the word, or the fragility about the wisps of image. The heightened pas- colour set against a stark sionate quality of her verses ‘white background. Meena imbues the images with a says, she was drawn towards strong emotional power. For the delicate strains of blue, vi- | Acold heat burns let, pink, Coming as some J through out my body sort of a break are the earth immersing into a frozen si- coloured images. Tence/A dead flame ‘The swirls and wisps of stifled me aliv colour, at times approximat- or ing a dancing form, at others Twatk bare feet a complex tapestry of ‘on the ruins of time. colours, seem to revel in Past crumbles underneath. their own being. Just like Images emerge from Meena does in her work. She the rigid stone ivalls runs an advertising agency cracking in front of me with her husband Bhupinder, Or even besides painting and writing Horizon brimmed. poetry, in Hindi and English Colours dripped from afi, ‘She has published a volume empty palette GP oftpoems, ignited Lines. My brush fumbled, der exhibition at Shadows etched distanfes. Shridharani will continue till The night disappeared. ‘August 22, It will move to the Tame collapsed in me. Habitat Centre from ‘The ephemeral quality of August 23, her images, almost dissolving ihiecus Capes’ into the white, comes out in Manisha Vardhan FRIDAY AUGUST 13, 1999 ‘soe PIONEER 11