SATORI LINES

A rare collection of artworks by the late abstractionist Nasreen Mohamedi reveals her philosophical outlook and love for minimalism

- Bandeep Singh

Spring in Delhi is the season of art. Galleries in the capital don the evening wear of high art, and the annual art fair is an efflorescence of creativity, leaping out of the booths in a mating dance of canvases and installations. Art parties acquire the aura of pilgrimages, and the delirium is unshakeable—even by an earthquake.

And yet, in the middle of it, in the designer stores-lined service lane of the upmarket Defence Colony in South Delhi, there is an art show that is a counterpoint to all this, replete with Yin energy, like a nun in a meditative retreat. The artworks are on small sheets of paper, mostly with just pen and pencil lines—so delicate, like ‘glass placed in water’, that they can’t be photographed by phone cameras. To see them, you need to come close, immerse yourself.

As you get in the range and the eye begins to discern the delicate line forms, you enter the artwork with a gasp and discover the brilliance of Nasreen Mohamedi (1937-1990), one of the pioneers of modern art in India and one of the first artists to use the vocabulary of modern abstraction in post-Independence India. The show brings together, for the first time, a collection of 40 artworks by this reclusive artist—paintings, drawings and photographs— from the collection of the Glenbarra Art Museum of Japan.