Jenny Bhatt

Exhibition: Colour

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The Turning Point

I take my work seriously, not myself, artist Jenny Bhatt tells
Anil Sadarangani.

Her colours are vibrant, the strokes are free, positivity exudes from her works. Her current collection of paintings is a reflection of the new Jenny Bhatt. “I feel free, fluid, as if I’ve broken free,” she says. So, if you’d known her previous works, more contemplative, and in the artist’s own words, “melancholy,” you’d be surprised. “Transcendental Meditation,” she says. That’s what helped her. She’d lock herself in her room and just loose herself in her canvasses. “I feel one with my work when I paint. In fact, after I complete a day’s work, which takes all day, I feel more energetic and positive. It shows in your work,” she says.
Which is why her current works are about colour and through colour, the exploration of the self. “The visual sensations are aroused because one’s eye travels all over the different textures that exist in the same colours. Also, my images are borrowed from different sources like Vedantic Theory and Pop Art,” explains the artist.
But it was not just meditation that changed the landscape of life for Bhatt. She explains, “I travelled all over US and Europe looking at different art. It completely changed me.”
The first time her life was altered by art was when she saw an original Monet, years ago. “I felt fulfilled, like my life was complete. That’s what art does to you.”
What is very interesting to note is that the questioning as well as honest and unassuming nature of the artist is absolute in her works. “We must be honest to ourselves and each other. I don’t do anything for anyone else. I create for myself. I’m excited by what I do and the fact that people are excited by it as well. And this collection has been my most intense and happiest,” she says.
And much like a piece of art, Bhatt too has several layers to herself. Like penning poetry and writing. And like her poetry that’s in her own words, “irreverent”, the book she’s currently in the process of writing, will be irreverent as well. “I’m not sure what shape it will take but it’s about the real world. Life is short and I want to do everything I want to do,” she says.