Hema Joshi -Review

Reviews

As an art lover, an art collector & a person very closely connected with Camlin, the company that deals with art materials, I have had the opportunity to see & interact with the best of art & artists in India. Hema Joshi & her works take their rightful place amongst these. Her talent lies in her intrinsic feel for the theme, the colours, the textures which she stretches to negotiate & create an exciting piece of work

Hema is fortunate to have a valuable legacy from her illustrious grandfather & her uncle, Kalamaharshi Shri S.L. Haldankar & Shri G.S. Haldankar respectively, who have a monumental standing in the Indian art world. She has trained with them and is at ease with the figurative works as she is with her abstract ones.

She keeps exploring new techniques & materials. Apart from painting she has worked in glass, wood, sculpting and installations. Her conceptual subject matter could be, “Horizon” that intangible line defining, defusing or reflecting the two worlds or it could be that perennially nagging question about whether life is ‘destined or not destined’. The preoccupation is with the interplay of the forces of the “apparent” and the “subtle”, the “finite” and the “infinite” to link these & hold them in balanced tension / movement. This becomes a meditative yantra to be translated in to a work of art.

Hema’s recent show was in figurative format. She interpreted some common every day happenings with a deeper, abstract angle e.g. ‘The sword & the Biographer’s dilemma’, ‘North by North East’. On the lighter side, I have been captivated by her water colours series, like the Window series or the Childrens’ series They have been handled in an expert manner with an amusing content

Rajani Dandekar

Joshi’s soft nuanced colours are as consummate as her finely balanced compositions. Flamingo pinks, lemony greens, sunset golds……… Through a gauzy haze of layered colours that glow with a sort of built-in incandescence.

Joshi comes across as an impeccable painter, with a measure of elegance and perfectionism that marks her work. While two very disparate tendencies seem to be on view, both evolve towards an organic and expressive format. And both are connected with an approach that is poetic and flexible, and, in the end, tied irrevocably to the fleeting visible world.

Kamla Kapoor

“The abstract in art seems an easy exercise in the minds of the lay public, as also of the puerile painters, but, in the final analysis any abstraction, Whether derived or summoned straight from the depths, imagination calls for an intense degree of competence to success in obtaining the essence of form, colour, or relative associations. It is from this point of view that one readily commends Hema Joshi’s paintings, which show a great deal of refinement, both in visualizing a composition and treatment of the paintings….”

The Times of India

Vasudev