Sujata Bajaj.

What first struck me about Sujata Bajaj's monotypes a decade ago was the feeling of facing an intense expression of lingering meditation camouflaged in an internationally abstract medium, where the texture and character gave me associations with Kurt Scwitter's and Rolf Nesch's collages. What fascinated me further was being in the presence of an intensely beautiful, yet tender expression. Images that were warm and gentle, but at the same time unapproachable, of an intensely concentrated, naked soul.

When I recently saw the pictures she had painted in the years in between, I was struck by the consistent way her art had developed. Each picture a new, genuine expression of the same mind - gentle, yet ardently intense. I also saw an analogous concentration in the construction of form, a few easily recognisable elements in endless variation; actual fragments of ancient philosophical and religious Sanskrit scripts, her own hand-made paper with finely cut or burnt edges - all acquired or created in Jaipur, painted in Stavanger in acrylic, and finally printed and mounted with her own characteristic technique in her Paris studio. The desert light from Rajastan, the powerfully rustic landscape of western Norway, and the musical and poetic aesthetics characteristic of the art life of Paris, all merged in the melodious interplay between the lines, surfaces and colours of each work. This process of creation, which has become a ritual, links each work of art specifically to the artist's birthplace in India, to her place of study in Paris - the crossroads of art from East and West - and to her place of residence in Norway. Each work thus specifically encapsulates a lasting perspective of time, a journey through continents.

Sujata Bajaj claims that the ancient Sanskrit scripts, which are preserved as specific remnants in each work, are not coincidental in relation to the expression in each, completed picture. She discovers traces of philosophical works in Indian antiquarians, but before using them she consciously recapitulates the chain of thought in each text, and lets the mood from that process influence her artistic expression. We are thus made aware of a different time perspective, one going thousands of years back to the roots of our civilisation; thoughts on the principle of Man and Woman, on the creative and destructive forces governing all, and on Man as part of both cosmos and chaos. This thought process is also specifically reflected in the images and the interplay of lines - in the way forms and colours are contrasted and balanced. The characteristic, visual holes in the surfaces allow us to perceive a background world, life-giving and full of light.

Where do we easiest find physical worlds in our reality that are similar to those portrayed by Sujata Bajaj? I believe we find them specifically in the retina behind closed eyes, where the traces of light live their own life in the form of physiological recollection. To a certain extent we are able to form such abstract recollective visual images with our will and eye muscles, but the artist can bring forth such images, manipulating and arranging them further in her own style in an artistic language that has its own rules, orthography and syntax.

Back to Reviews