suhasini kejriwal

Kejriwal works with photographic images of flowers, picturing them on canvas not so much with a view to their direct representation, or even to their clear legibility and comprehension, but by an emphatic and all-present deployment of a gentle filigree line without beginning or end. In the swirling dynamism of her line, Kejriwal emulates the traditional South Asian mendhi patterning used for decorating hands and feet in celebrations and festivals. The decorative yet painstaking detail of Kejriwal's paintings, and of their making, and the codified and time-honed nature of the patterning that is inscribed in them, prevents any direct identification of Kejriwal's paintings with the gestures of expressionism from the Western art tradition. The detail, persistence and sheer mass of her line suggests another sort of affective intensity which lies behind the decorative traditions which Kejriwal deploys: that of the flowers which we often take to be the archetypes of pattern, symbol, decoration, affect and intensity.

In a world in which most images are about immediate gratification, I believe art creates a unique space where images function differently.

For instance, images used in the predominant propoganda of politics and commerce (advertising), have a non-subtle objective. The images unabashedly establish this relationship with the power structure(s) they represent. Each image fulfills a particular agenda of the power structure it represents. The image is mass consumer-friendly in that it is easily understood, digested and in a short span of time. Subsequently, this image is discarded (and soon forgotten) for the next image, which unfolds the shifting agenda of that power structure. In this way, propoganda images are churned out and discarded with dizzying speed.

However, images in art establish a more complex relationship with its viewer. The language of the art image is non-verbal and its operation is not restricted within a linear logic; it is therefore open to more possibilities. The most interesting aspect of the impact of images in art over power structures and culture is that it occurs in the aesthetic mode. There is also a deliberate slowing down in the processing of the image by the viewer here which I find interesting because images in art may not always be so easily consumed or discarded. This impact is subtle and deep rather than immediate or fleeting.