NAME/PLACE/ANIMAL/THING
HEERAL TRIVEDI
Anant Art Gallery, 2009 (November December)
Catalogue Essay: Deeksha Nath
THE SYMBOLISM OF THINGS: UNDERSTANDING HEERAL’S USE OF SEEMINGLY UNRELATED OBJECTS
When we look at a symbol, references for understanding that image and its implications come to us in staccato bursts rather than as a paced reading of a text. Heeral draws her images from encyclopedias, children’s stickers and learning books, drawings by old masters like Da Vinci, Bruegel, Bosch- the Renaissance masters, classical architecture and her previous paintings. While she uses a seemingly ad-hoc compositional technique of randomly juxtaposing images against an undistinguished shadowy background, care is given to create an observational path for the viewer. We are led from one object to another by architectural and decorative elements and the directional profile of the objects. Heeral’s paintings are thus akin to visual puzzles.
(excerpt from the catalogue essay ‘The symbolism of things: Understanding Heeral’s use of seemingly unrelated objects’ by Deeksha Nath)