Seasons and Mosaics by Hina Bhatt

The term ‘bigger picture’ evokes a certain response, which furthers the visual experience
of a viewer by plunging the image into their minds, frenetically trying to draw parallels and
meanings, in essence, to make sense of it. However, there is a difference in the way
human beings and other animals, birds, or insects, perceive the visual world around them
owing to their biological visual apparatuses which permit only certain wavelengths of light
or colour to be seen. Therefore what is apparent is in bits and pieces, mosaic-like,
essentially diminishing the bigger picture from discernment. Over time and with
technology, the visual world has become a mosaic which builds up to create the entire
visual. In today’s times, the mosaic has morphed into pixels, and nature’s unique visual
algorithm can be mapped in a 1- 0 sequence by any AI. But does it capture the core truth
of Nature?

As the world around us changes, so does the visual experience but in artist Hina Bhatt’s
works, she attempts to hold on to that last sentience of nature’s mystique which, can never
be replicated by technology – Nature’s spirit. That irreplaceable life force which courses
through roots, veins, leaves and the air that one breathes, its endurance and
interchangeability. Bhatt has a penchant for noticing nature in its quiet formative moments.
This is made evident in her series of works ‘Ruturaj’ (King of seasons) which are rendered
in a nature-abstract lexicon and present to the viewer the ephemeral essence of changing
seasons. Reminiscent of the 18th-19th century Baramasa poetry, these paintings capture
the changeable disposition of time, in the form of abstractions of foliage and moods.
The works are rendered in oil on canvas and present a perspective of moods, often
expressed using colours which are vibrant or subdued, playful and sombre. This oscillation
between the opposites of the colour palette adds to the play of depth, light, movement and
a sensorial experience which can resemble the real changes of season. Bhatt’s application
of paint is vaguely reminiscent of the Impressionists who aimed to capture the
characteristic essence of a scene, focusing on the way light changes the nature of an
object and makes it anew. Bhatt’s skill seems to warrant such commendation too, as one
looks at these works intently, one could experience a fleeting movement of the foliage. It
has to be attributed to the impasto brush strokes, especially when they lead the eye
around the work and a mental journey all at once.
In the other suite of works titled ‘Roots and Bonds’, the artist changes the medium to pen
on canvas, focusing the visual on specific figurations and intended meaning. Here the
visual focuses upon the roots of old trees, which clasp at the earth with all their might,
almost inseparably. Over this finely penned backdrop, Bhatt paints patch-worked
parchment-like pieces, sewn together roughly, as a metaphor for binding. The concept is
about roots, of trees, of people, of motherlands, of minds, of belonging, of love and of
finding that one deep connection with something or someone to make one’s life
purposeful. The works also could be seen as motifs which hold a picture together, the
picture could be a reality or a person’s own reality, which is fragmented by the roles one
plays in life, but is held together precariously only because of the rooted knowledge and
spiritual essence of their core values. Unmoored by these precariously sewn threads, the
parchments stand alone, meaningless and perforated by the inevitability of ignorance, as
seen in one of the works.
There is a certain invisible connection between these series, Ruturaj and Roots and
Bonds; visually they could only share the hints at nature and nature’s muses as a trigger,
yet both the works segue into one another seamlessly when one considers the true nature

of the human mind which perceives it.

For Bhatt, nature is the real teacher, the guide, the
philosopher, and when she chooses to engage with nature in the simplest of ways
possible, she encounters its beauty, its playfulness through seasons, its hide-and-seek
games with sunlight and wind, its unique scripts in the shadows its throws on the grounds,
its aromas and its textures which fill her with a sense of oneness with nature. Such an
engagement possibly gave rise to the Ruturaj series as it is evident from the quintessence
of the series, yet, the Roots and Bonds series becomes the marrow of the artist’s intense
engagement and her taking that experience forward through interpretations of said
experiences. The Roots and Bonds series brings the mind back to the origins, to the reality
of today’s fragmented lives, to the piece-meal existences, to the speed of living and dying,
to the authenticity of human existence, to their roots and lack thereof, hence the mosaic-
like life.
Bhatt’s works take the viewer on a journey of outer and inner realms, some are beautiful
vistas never experienced before, and others are like looking at mirrors which have not
been looked into for ages. This dual facet of her works and her addressal of human life
through Nature as a leader brings out the purpose of such practice – to redefine the
inherent unity of humans, flora and fauna alike. One cannot exist without the other. Artist
Hina Bhatt seems to articulate this by trying to fit the mosaic pieces of life itself in her
works, recreating a better, bigger picture with definition and clarity for the future.