10 Questions with Anita Tiwary

Anita Tiwary is a visual artist (b. 1959, New Delhi, India) though brought up in the holy city of Varanasi. Her journey of creativity started due to her father. She was in 3rd standard when her father spotted her drawings and later encouraged her decision to pursue art as a career. She graduated in Painting (BFA) from Banaras Hindu University, India, in 1980 and was awarded a Gold medal. She completed her Master's in Art Criticism from MS University of Baroda, India, in 1983. She was Awarded Research Grant in Painting from Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi, in 1986-1987. She first gained recognition from Mr. Ebrahim Alkazi Director of Art Heritage Gallery, India, in 2007. He sponsored her exhibition titled "Colors of spring," a series of soulscapes (acrylic on canvas).

Anita Tiwary's paintings are the thread of her inner journey of known, unknown, and beyond for an eternity which reflects in her Soulscapes, Dream Narratives, and Abstract representational art. "My Soulscapes are not a direct rendering of a place but a reaction and evocation of how I feel and relate to the surroundings", says the artist. She joined Buddhism, and during this time, a new understanding of the universe took a pilgrimage within her, as if taking a cleansing bath through one work after another, for example, Half glass full or Half glass empty, Holy Bath, Churned out, Well of providence, etc. Her research explores conserving and preserving nature, environmental issues like plastic pollution, Coral Reefs, Forest Bathing, etc.

Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, most recently at Festival d'Art Sacre, Compiegne, France (2021), and was awarded Modern Art Energy Excellence Award by Japan. She was invited by Hangzhou Qianjiang International Art Museum of China to participate in the International Art Exhibition in 2020 and was awarded a Gold medal. She also participated in the 2nd International Contemporary Art Austria Biennale (2019), Senlis Sacred Art Festival, Senlis, France (2019), Qianjiang International Art Biennale, China (2018), Milan Biennale, Italy (2017), Beijing Art Expo (2015), She has held solo shows at Gallery 78, Hyderabad, India, Minaaz Art Gallery, Hyderabad, India, Neilson Gallery, Cadiz (Grazalema) Spain and Group art exhibitions "Dreamscapes" at Art Heritage Gallery, India, "Meraki" at Galerie Métanoïa, Paris, France, "Explosion of the visions" at MAMAG Modern Art Museum in Castle Hubertendorf in Austria, Contemporary Art Fair in the Carrousel du Louvre, Paris, France. She was invited by Neilson Gallery, Grazalema, Spain, for Artist in Residency in 2014.

@weavingdreamsanita

ARTIST STATEMENT

Anita Tiwary's work is about the interconnection of all kinds of beings with nature and the universe. Her paintings have hybrid characters honouring their connectedness to each other. The figures in her paintings are in constant conversation with a desire for compassion for a harmonized world. "My dreams are like the little dramas in my mind transcending the globalised world like an illustrated poem", says the artist. She experiments with space by using layered forms, figures, and multiple irregular perspectives. The figures in narration are to bring collective consciousness with a holistic approach. She gets inspiration from dreamy compositions and otherworldly landscapes that can be found on earth.

Presently, she is exploring the impact of hybridization by creating Tailor-made Dreams. "In this, I am depicting circumstances of our lives thread by thread, dream by dream. Therefore we decorate our journey symbolically by stitching, sewing, knitting, knotting, and embroidering to re-energise our lives again. 'Tailor-made Dreams' is inspired by my life experiences of hardships", says the artist.

The artist's figurative works are the narrative of automatic drawing and the involvement of the subconscious mind. Her process is intuitive as well as spontaneous, weaving together the images, narratives, and her personal insights. Sometimes these episodes are events and situations in a time sequence like snapshots of events experienced in life. She focuses on these elements of dreams to communicate the tapestry of life. These strands are woven into a narrative form to tell a story in a dreamscape.

She enjoys experimenting with different methods of paint application and exploring new techniques between colours, forms, and textures. To explore further into the realm, she works in watercolour, mix-media, crayons, pen & pencil, and acrylic colours. "The free-flowing lines represent universal balance as we are all connected emotionally to what is around us. I dream of one world, one family intermingling with each other compassionately, building universal oneness, world peace, and harmony", says the artist.

INTERVIEW

First of all, tell our readers a little bit about you. Who are you, and how did you start experimenting with images?

I am a visual artist, born in 1959 inNew Delhi. I was brought up in the holy city of Varanasi, and I now live in New Delhi. My journey of creativity started due to my father. I was in 3rd standard when my father spotted my drawings. An art tutor started coming to give me art lessons. This was my interaction with an ocean of images floating around me. I grew up listening to music, going to dance performances, and enjoying going to the theatre. My art practice at the Ghats of Holy Ganges during my fine arts in Varanasi captured the fabric of life, the vocabulary of actions between figures, animals, and landscape; listening to the holy rituals and chanting of the priest gave me a spiritual bent of mind. I believe that we go through many births to get the ultimate human form. That's why I relate to the hybridization of combining human form with animal, which led to my Shakti series in which I have shown women's face fusing with the tigress body. I also started dreaming of flying figures, fantasy, and many permutations and combinations of human forms with animals. 
After my post-graduation, I settled in Delhi. I started seeing MTV series as they had visuals with images and pop colours with music. This was the time when I was exploring and experimenting with my creative pursuits. I used to paint while the music played, and accordingly, my brush strokes captured the visuals and expression with the fusion of my thoughts. I used to dream of figures and naturescape morphing together in fantastical timeless spaces that feel both personal and universal due to colourful imagery of the MTV series. 
Further, I got fascinated by the models from the fashion world which I saw in the magazines and newspapers. I fused them with my created imagery and concepts. These earlier paintings portrayed single figures surrounded by soulscapes in a totally immersive environment, as if 'Talking to heaven'. The figuration in my paintings is shown in contemplation and meditation because somewhere deep down, they have experienced spirituality. 
Later I got interested in the exploration and adventures into the fantastical and dream world, in connection to magical realism between the thinkable and unthinkable, the visible and the invisible 'Through the eyes of my soul'. This current phase of my work explores and experiments with dream narratives with hybridization. I was dreaming before also but was looking outside world for images in the form of fashioned models but the turning point came after my sister passed away which gave me insight to explore the world of dreams and the images coming out from my inner world (subconscious mind). In my dreams, the avatars of hundreds of people running, walking and flying create a universe that offers a glimpse into optimistic futurist modes of envisioning our collective destinies. These narratives create speculative landscapes, navigating the themes of intimacy, identity and ecology.

What is your personal aim as an artist?

My personal aim as an artist is that we should all dream, as they are an important part of our lives. Dreaming is as natural and spontaneous as breathing. Dreams lead us to intricate fantasies to navigate the future and scientific discoveries. Therefore, Collective dreaming can build a world of peace, love, and harmony as we are one family, one world with the same life energy in every one of us.
Through my art, I want to spread collective consciousness of serving the planet. My life is not about 'little' me but is about 'universal' me- that huge part of me, that unlimited part of me, that is unified with every other human being. 

Can you tell us about the process of creating your work? What aspect of your work do you pay particular attention to?

My process is spontaneous, weaving together the images, narratives, and my personal insights. Sometimes these episodes are events and situations in a time sequence like snapshots of events experienced in life. I intuitively started working on my own inner visual language to tune into my subconscious experience of the dream world to communicate the tapestry of life. These strands are woven into a narrative form to tell a story in a dreamscape. 
My figurative works are an exploration of automatic drawings and the involvement of the subconscious mind. The textural lines are spontaneous, experimental, and chance happening to guide the work. The dream world gives an unimaginable cosmos with the added benefit of the inner voyage, which thrills my soul with a new mystery, magic, and wonder. The free-flowing lines with weaving textures represent universal balance as we are all connected emotionally to what is around us. These dream narratives enable me to express my passion for humanity reconnecting, not only with each other but with the wider cosmos. I work with colour pencils, pastels, watercolours, mix-media, and acrylics. Colour is a fascinating process to experience an integral part of my journey. Every painting has its own visual dance of colours and layers with an alluring mix of forms and figures. In my dreams colour is the place where my brain and the universe meet, creating a channel of colours and hybrid landscapes drawn from nature, vision, and dreams with various textural strokes exuding vitality and excitement to my weaving dreams.
I communicate with every aspect of my work and pay attention to it as I believe that it speaks back to me with contemporary allegories of new symbols and hybridization with many mirrors of social and spiritual relations to connect. 

You work with painting and on the concept of dreams. How do you mix those two and how do you work on this concept?

My consumption of images feeds from my daily drawing practice, which in turn metabolises paintings in the surreal world of images. My paintings depict dream-like characters, with multiple perspectives to show depth. I believe that in my dreams I receive signals from other worldly planets or species to create narratives on my canvas. My dreams also come from my intuitive process and personal memories to hybridization and abstraction in painting as a source of creativity. My figurative approach unfolds many little dramas, sprouting and swaying to the rhythm of breath, nature, and movement from one form to another onto the canvas. My dreams are to cultivate and nurture our souls.

In your statement, you mention "Tailor-made Dreams". What is this? And how did you come up with this idea?

In this, I am depicting circumstances of our lives thread by thread, dream by dream. Therefore we decorate our journey symbolically by stitching, sewing, knitting, knotting, and embroidering to re-energise our lives again. 'Tailor-made Dreams' is inspired by my life experiences of hardships. The patch of hardships on the fabric of my life is made up of bringing up my daughters single-handedly and running from pillar to post to make ends meet.
I believe in recycling, and would visit alteration tailors with the frocks of my elder daughter to get them resized for my younger one. He would make the clothing look seamless and wearable again, thus giving it a renewed look. The tailors often spin their magic of patching, stitching, and mending using their threads and needles on the sewing machine in such a manner that sometimes we can't find any flaws, and the clothes look new as they were. This made me realise, that we, too, tailor ourselves in such a way that people cannot recognise the story of hardships in our lives.
Further, my visualisation of the sewing machine transforms into the spirit animal Goat, which is the thread of continuity of religion, economy, nutrition, and tradition. The Goat symbolises our lives to move forward with new endeavours and broad perspectives. I depict all these elements in my painting as if tailoring the sheet of life. The free-flowing lines and textures represent universal balance as we all are connected emotionally to what is around us.

Where do you draw inspiration from for your work? Do you have any specific references?

I started drawing early. Drawing from a fertile inner emotional realm and painterly vocabulary were existential to me. I work on a multitude of images with kaleidoscopic combinations, and some then become the basis for my painting. My dreams are an inspiration that evokes an in-between state, almost trance-like, where the lines between the real and surreal collide. 
There was a turning point in my life when I started believing in dreams which give messages from deep spirituality, and it also gave me insights to explore my own vocabulary of dreams. In one of my incomplete paintings, I painted a woman sitting in an open courtyard, looking upward to the sky as if something was coming down to her. During this time, my younger sister was suffering from cancer, and I got the chance to spend time with her when she was at her last stage. One morning she shared her dream with me as she saw herself sitting in a courtyard and looking upward, and many colourful lights were coming to her. I just couldn't believe it, as the painting I started six months before got the answer to how to be completed: these colourful lights were souls from heaven coming down to her. 

What is your favourite experience as an artist so far?

My favourite experience as an artist is that every morning I glide through my dreams, unfolding them onto the paper to create my visual language of automatic thoughts, which is reviewed with my recollection of memories drawn from nature, vision, and dreams, creating indistinctive textures casting dramatic scenes with figure and forms.

What do you think about the art community and market?  

The art community is the expression of love, dream sharing, a desire to connect, a willingness to explore, a belief in society, and being human. The art market is changing dramatically in the digital technological world, transforming how we see and experience art. The new digital platform is largely seeking to produce more immersive and interactive experiences for the audiences, for eg. NFT, Virtual reality, AI intelligence, spreading massively around the world by which this digital content is much more interactive with lots of visual possibilities. On the other hand, the greatest thrills of art are in its physicality and materiality as it helps us to travel through time to connect with the work of art from hundreds of years ago as if you are transported back in time to the moment in which it was made and at the same time that artwork and the person who made it is transported forward in time to you. Art is like a Time Machine, and this wonderful, very intimate encounter can take place between an object and a person that may be separated by thousands of miles or thousands of years as it will never fade.

What are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future? Anything exciting you can tell us about?

I am working on Hybrid Honey Bees. Since ancient times honey bees have had environmental significance and are an integral part of human culture. Bees are essential to protect biodiversity in nature, and we need to save and conserve the Bee population. I believe that God has given us the costume in various shapes, sizes, and colours in the form of humans, animals, nature, etc. The soul resides in everyone. All we need is to open our eyes of the soul to give and receive love, kindness, healing, and purity. Everything is connected to everything else in nature for the abundance of life on earth. Even if one species disappear, it affects the existence of other dependent species. Therefore, the survival of Bees is essential for the health of people and the planet. My dream is to raise awareness through my visual narratives to protect Honey Bees in maintaining healthy ecosystems, as the number of Bees worldwide is in decline, and it is essential to protect them to maintain human well-being.

And finally, what is one piece of advice you would give to an emerging artist? 

"Keep dreaming, keep creating, and keep exploring to navigate the future."