AnujalikaVisual artist
FR

India chapter

Roots

Period
2016–2019
Works
11
Exhibition
India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, 16–18 June 2019

Oil paintings, mixed media and enamel shown at the solo exhibition Roots, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, 2019. Fragmented bodies and architectural structures hold one another in tension.

The series is structured along three formal axes. The body as social archive: fragments of bodies and suspended gestures reveal the traces of collective experience within the individual form. The object as a vector of memory: objects and architectural motifs act as symbolic mediators and condense implicit narratives. The space of relation: the composition opens a relational space in which painting becomes a meeting place between the intimate and the collective.

Installation view, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, 2019
Figuring it out, Oil on canvas, 2018, by Anujalika. A red anatomical heart rests on top of a blue ladder leaning against an empty frame; an orange cat sits on a lilac block below, against a pale green ground.
Figuring it out2018, Oil on canvas · 45 × 30 in
Irony, Oil on canvas, 2018, by Anujalika. A single leg in blue jeans and a leather sandal floats horizontally across a pale ground; green seedlings grow from the trouser leg and small insects hover nearby.
Irony2018, Oil on canvas · 43 × 28 in
Formality, Oil on canvas, 2018, by Anujalika. Two nested red rectangular frames on an ochre ground; in the right frame a hand reaches inward, in the left a white dashed circle.
Formality2018, Oil on canvas · 43 × 28 in
Psychological Hold, Oil on canvas, 2018, by Anujalika. Four grey-blue hands emerge from the edges of an ochre and terracotta ground drawn with architectural lines, reaching toward a central column.
Psychological Hold2018, Oil on canvas · 44 × 32 in
Flight, Oil on canvas, 2016, by Anujalika. A bird with spread wings painted in white and black over a teal and red ground, with two small empty frames.
Flight2016, Oil on canvas · 36 × 36 in

Roots

In the works that give the exhibition its name, organic lines meet architectural structures. The encounter questions the conditions of anchoring in contexts of mobility; roots become a metaphor for memory in circulation.

Roots I, Mixed media, 2019, by Anujalika. A teal and yellow-green poured ground; on the right, a semicircle of fine black architectural line drawing from which a root-like black line escapes.
Roots I2019, Mixed media · 30 × 36 in
Roots II, Mixed media, 2019, by Anujalika. A blue, white and copper poured ground; along the left edge, black architectural line drawings of stacked frames with a root-like line winding through them.
Roots II2019, Mixed media · 26 × 20 in
The Passage, Pencil on paper, 2019, by Anujalika. A framed pencil drawing: black root lines spread downward from a small hatched pyramid at the top centre, over a faint contour-line ground.
The Passage2019, Pencil on paper · 29 × 23 in (including frame)
Installation view, Roots series

Matter

In the enamel and poured works, materiality becomes central: the textures translate states of transformation, and attention shifts from motif to process.

Immersive I–II, Enamel on canvas, 2019, by Anujalika. A horizontal enamel pour in turquoise, teal and white with dark red veins, the pigment flowing diagonally like a current.
Immersive I–II2019, Enamel on canvas · 24 × 12 in
Duality, Enamel on canvas, 2019, by Anujalika. A tall narrow canvas: red enamel on the left meets grey-white and copper on the right along a ragged vertical seam.
Duality2019, Enamel on canvas · 48 × 16 in
Cyclic Movements I–II, Mixed media, 2019, by Anujalika. A square canvas in which red, black, white and ochre pigment swirl outward from the centre like a vortex.
Cyclic Movements I–II2019, Mixed media · 24 × 24 in
Immersive, installation view, 2019