The artist’s muse struck Mridul after she shifted to Bangalore in 1986, although the foundation for her creativity had been laid at the JJ School of Art many years earlier, and had led her to start working doing interior designing at the Indraprastha Stadium (Delhi) in 1982.
She has also done a one-year stint teaching the IB curriculam to school students.
Today there is a strong emphasis on depicting the human face, used as a palimpsest to reflect emotions and feelings. This is particularly evident in her smaller works, which are almost ‘windows to the soul’.
The medium-sized paintings have more groups and forms, setting the individual within his (or her) family and society.
The use of colour and form is deliberate, an attempt to highlight the moods and emotions being projected. We see strong and vibrant colours spanning both ends of the spectrum: brilliant indigos merging into blues and purples, or oranges and reds that move towards a ‘brown study’ – exuberant and sombre at the same time.
The paintings can be interpreted at various levels, from the very direct to the subliminal. Mridul has been strongly influenced by her family and her relationships with people - as they have evolved over the years, so have her paintings. The images on her canvas express human concerns and pre-occupations: happiness, sorrow, anxiety, anger, resignation – as well as the more mundane concerns of day-to-day life. |
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