‘Utopia' an exhibition of paintings by Mini Prakash seems to be an exploration or rather a quest for that elusive Utopia, a perfect world. The exhibition is on Durbar Hall Art Centre.
That quest seems to lead her to the eternal conflict between nature and man. Hence there are paintings of mangroves and women; women in mangroves and spices. The ability to survive that is unique to the mangroves as an ecosystem; other life forms seem to draw sustenance from these and therefore in the paintings there are tiny details of other life forms. The ecosystem that thrives on mangroves all find expression in the paintings which summon an alternative world.
Woman is another recurrent theme in the paintings. These seem to be in a ‘lotus- eaters' kind of existence or rather they may well reside in the universe of Sappho's poems. The women in one of the paintings seem to be direct interpretation of the Lotus Eaters because each of the women seems to be holding lotuses. It is a languid world that is at the same time fantastical.
Mini Prakash, a homemaker has exhibited her works twice before. The exhibition concludes on June 7.
