10 Questions with Maitreyee Nimbolkar
Born on 1st September 1989 and raised in a small remote village located amidst the mountain ranges of the Western Ghats of India, Maitreyee is largely self-taught, having put together her own educational path. Maitreyee loves telling stories of her dreams, her thoughts, and her experiences through her works. Over the past 7-8 years, her artistic practice has evolved from being realistic towards a combination of elements of realism and abstraction to create a visual experience which is very personal for her, it being a translation of her lifestyle choices.
Maitreyee is currently based in Pune, India and has been painting and making art for over the past eight years.
Maitreyee came to Pune in 2005 to study chartered accountancy. She displayed the highest academic intelligence by achieving an India rank 1 in her CA final examination. It was in late 2015 that Maitreyee realised that painting was what really cheered her up. After quitting her corporate job, she started her fine arts training under the late Sachin Naik, a master watercolourist based in Pune. She is also self-taught, deriving her learning from various books, workshops, interactions with fellow artists and her dogged determination and love of art.
In 2019, she took a nine-month break and travelled across Europe, where she invested her time in visiting various art galleries, making acquaintances with fellow artists and making mental notes of her travel experiences in around ten-plus European countries, hoping for their translation in her art one day.
She works out of her studio in Pune in a range of mediums such as oils, acrylics, watercolours, gouache, collage, etc. Her compositional inspirations have traces of her childhood spent in the midst of nature, her back-packing travels, her love towards literature and her lifestyle choices of being a minimalist and living in a planet-friendly way.
Maitreyee Nimbolkar - Portrait
ARTIST STATEMENT
Maitreyee loves telling stories of her dreams, thoughts, and experiences through her works. Over eight years, her artistic practice has evolved from being realistic towards combining elements of realism and abstraction to create a visual experience, which is very personal for her, it being a manifestation of my lifestyle choices. She works in a range of mediums such as oils, acrylics, watercolour, gouache, mixed media, etc.
Maitreyee looks at painting as more of a lifestyle choice. In today’s fast-paced, rat-racing world, she finds a sense of being and a purpose of life through painting. Her art is a translation and reflection of lifestyle choices that she has made, having chosen a minimalistic and artistic way of living by breaking away from the daily grind of the rat race.
Her landscapes are heavily inspired by her experiences and associated deeply with the impressions of those experiences that have stayed with her or their metaphorical resonances in other aspects of day-to-day life.
Taking a piece of her memory, Maitreyee attempts to create for the viewer the experience that she felt for herself. She relies on her intuitive responses to choose materials while creating mixed media and collage vision pieces.
Having childhood memories deeply connected with nature as well as having made a conscious choice of living in a minimalistic, planet-friendly way, Maitreyee’s art usually tends to explore environmental issues exacerbated by the human desire to always have more and more. She wishes to encourage the viewer to also reflect upon deeper self-exploration desires through her paintings. Naturally, her paintings are deeply hued yet calming representations of her ideas, having a sustainable meditative quality in them.
Portrait of time I, Oil on canvas and collage, 30x48 inch, 2022 © Maitreyee Nimbolkar
INTERVIEW
First of all, tell us a little more about yourself. How did you begin making art? And what inspired you to pursue a career in art?
I was born and raised in a small village located amidst the mountain ranges of the Western Ghats of India. I spent my childhood in the midst of nature, and my father’s love towards the environment, ecology and nature in general left a strong influence on me. I moved to a city as an adolescent and have lived in cities all throughout my adult life.
I am academically trained as a chartered accountant (CA) with a rather top-notch academic record (holding all India 1st rank at the CA final exams) and was part of corporate public practice and thereafter private practice for a few years. During this period, I always used to feel out of place and out of touch with my innate callings. Finally, in 2015, I realised that painting and making art is what made me feel alive, be it feeling excited, anguished or sometimes content. So I made up what seemed like a very questionable decision to many of my friends and family members of quitting my high-paying corporate job and starting out as an artist. I have to say that my best friend and boyfriend, who later became my husband, had a huge role to play in helping me make this decision of quitting what made me not comfortable in my own skin.
As a largely self-taught artist, what were and still are the sources of inspiration and role models that helped you develop into the artist you are today?
I have always been a voracious reader, and during my school days, I came across a book containing Vincent Van Gogh’s letters to his brother. On a trip to London in 2012, I saw two of his original paintings at the National Art Gallery and was completely awestruck by what seemed like a childlike fervour in those works. I always look up to Vincent Van Gogh as a tremendously ferocious source of inspiration, not just for his works but for his way of living and his unabated passion for nature, life and art.
V. S. Gaitonde and Ram Kumar are two Indian artists whom I consider to be great sources of inspiration for me, again not just for their art but for their philosophy and lifestyle choices.
I believe that my childhood spent amidst nature practising a simple lifestyle has a huge part to play in my philosophy, whereby I look at painting as more of a lifestyle choice. In today’s fast-paced, rat-racing world, I find a sense of being and a purpose in life through painting.
I am also a reader and follower of Buddhist philosophy, especially the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. My lifestyle and my practice as an artist are influenced by his philosophy of mindful and minimalistic living.
Portrait of time V, Mixed media on cloth, 12x12 inch, 2023 © Maitreyee Nimbolkar
Portrait of time IV, Mixed media on hardboard panel, 6x10 inch, 2022 © Maitreyee Nimbolkar
How has your art evolved over the years? What elements do you find are most recurring?
I started working as an artist in 2015, and over the past 8 years, my artistic practice has evolved from being realistic towards combining elements of realism and abstraction to create a visual experience, which is very personal for me, it being a manifestation of my lifestyle choices.
What always keeps on recurring in my works is my love for nature and a feeling of belonging with the natural elements. I, being born and raised in a place deeply surrounded by nature and having lived in cities all throughout my youth and adulthood, find myself travelling between these phases of my life. I feel that my works also echo the hope of finding contentment and peace amidst all the urbanisation, fragmentation and dilapidation of human life.
You work with various mediums like oils, acrylics, watercolour, gouache, and mixed media. How do you decide which medium to use for a particular piece, and how does it contribute to the overall message you want to convey?
I follow the practice of closing my eyes and trying to visualise how a certain piece of work would look alike. That is also one reason why my works appear distorted, almost as if out of a dream. The choice of mediums such as oils, watercolours, and acrylics is a result of my intuitive response. I view my art as an emotive expression for myself and the viewers, and I believe the intuitive choice, most of the time, works out best for me in bringing out the feeling that I wish to lay on the canvas.
Portrait of a time II, Watercolour and collage, 22x35 inch, 2022 © Maitreyee Nimbolkar
Childhood memories, experiences with nature, and a conscious choice of living in a minimalistic, planet-friendly way influence your art. Can you talk about how these influences manifest in your paintings and explore environmental issues?
I believe that my work is an emotive expression of myself, my thoughts, my ideas, my past experiences and also my dreams. Accordingly, it is born out of these elements. For example, I recently worked on the series “Portrait of a Time”. It basically seeks to convey, through a unique visual experience, the portrait of the current times that the beings on the earth are going through.
It was inspired by an article I read and a photograph I saw of a herd of elephants in China, lying huddled up like small babies. These elephants had embarked on a really long migration for an inexplicable reason and had been exhausted from the long trek. This was also believed to be unusual for fully grown elephants. That image stayed for a long time in my mind, and an idea of a series of works was conceived centred around what the current times have done to this majestic species of animals. I worked on a series of paintings and collage works that explore the themes of man-animal conflict, hunting for ivory, reducing habitats and the resultant decline in the population of the herds, etc.
I visited the culturally and aesthetically rich Buddhist paintings at Ajanta Caves (a UNESCO Heritage site), which significantly influenced the expression of my works and thus, though the inherent theme of ‘Portrait of a Time’ seeks to explore environmental issues exacerbated by human behaviour and greed, the visual experience retained a meditative quality about it.
The other series of paintings and collage work that I recently worked on was ‘Would you notice if I died…’. This idea was a result of a phase of intense inner deliberation that I was undergoing. I was struggling to make a decision whether to move away from the city life wherein I was feeling trapped but at the same time, hugely artistically stimulated and inspired. So the works also delved into the themes of fractured urban rhythms, the fragmented nature of city life, the allure it holds despite its viciousness and toxicity, and a desperate attempt to find hope and joy, however ephemeral they may be, amidst all the decay and dilapidation of human life.
You seem to lean most of all towards painting. What does this medium represent for you?
Painting, for me, is putting down my memories or the very vivid dreams that I dream about on canvas/paper. It represents a process of meditation for me.
The other side of town, oil on canvas and Collage, 36x24 inch, 2022 © Maitreyee Nimbolkar
Hanging by a thread, oil on canvas and collage, 24x15 inch, 2022 © Maitreyee Nimbolkar
What is your routine when working? Do you have a specific routine or do you follow your inspiration?
I believe that disciplined studio practice is really important. I do not follow a fixed routine apart from the fact that I try to go to the studio as regularly as possible, almost every day.
At my studio, I read, listen to music or practise technical aspects of drawing and painting until a strong desire to put down something on a fresh canvas strikes. As I mentioned above, I also follow the practice of closing my eyes and imagining how a piece of work would look before starting out.
Is there a piece you consider a “breakthrough” in your career?
No, I believe all my works are part of a journey of exploration of myself, and I wouldn’t want to call any of the pieces a breakthrough one.
Alure of the city, oil on canvas, 24x36 inch, 2023 © Maitreyee Nimbolkar
What is, so far, your favourite memory as an artist?
When I was 10-11 years old, I watched a movie which showed a bright blood-red sun rising. I remember sitting down with a piece of paper and watercolours to capture that oozing redness and was ecstatic when the colours glistened on the paper. Once the colours dried, the magic disappeared. I think this, by far, is my most alive memory of feeling ecstatic and desolate within moments as an artist.
And lastly, what is your biggest career goal or dream?
Every work that I make makes me realise the imperfections and incompleteness of it. One day, I would like to make peace with the imperfections and the incompleteness of my works. I would want to be completely present in the process of creating, enjoying it or feeling the turmoil of it, without being perturbed by the result it produces. Achieving that stage would really be my dream.
Artist’s Talk
Al-Tiba9 Interviews is a promotional platform for artists to articulate their vision and engage them with our diverse readership through a published art dialogue. The artists are interviewed by Mohamed Benhadj, the founder & curator of Al-Tiba9, to highlight their artistic careers and introduce them to the international contemporary art scene across our vast network of museums, galleries, art professionals, art dealers, collectors, and art lovers across the globe.
