Painting is not just a work of art, it is the mirror to one’s personality. The way a painter feels reflects on his canvas. Like Gunjan Ahlawat, a book designer and visual artist, who took a trip down the memory lane to create a range of paintings, which he recently exhibited at Visual Arts Gallery in India Habitat Centre.
His paintings showcase the beauty of nature rendered in acrylic and watercolours. Smudging and mixing of colours produced good effect. “Most of my art work is based on nature because my dad is a farmer. I myself was thinking about why I am only doing nature, not any kind of still life and may be subconsciously it is because I come from there I can somehow relate to it,” says Ahlawat.
Sharing his experience of how his fleeting fancy for art developed into full-fledged passion, Ahlawat says, “I was painting since childhood and then many people acknowledged it. I got busy with life, studies and designing things, but something else was going on inside me. So, I just thought to bring out this side of mine and then I started painting. One thing which also led me this way was my personal crisis because somebody whom I loved very dearly, who walked into my life and then left me devastated. I was depressed and started writing about those feelings about relationships, time, solitude and everything.”
A few months ago Ahlawat was revisiting his journals. “They transported me back to those times and I thought to rewrite them but in a more beautiful way. This led me towards creating this collection of paintings, which is a blend of my memories, feelings and emotions.”
Ahlawat’s favourite is a landscape of lavender fields.
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“This work of mine is a synthesis of my documentation (photographs), research and imagination and I leave it slightly open-ended so that people can derive their own meaning.”
