A New Exhibition is Making Rounds
The Earth My Home is an exhibition that highlights eco-dyeing, with Shibori techniques and wild art all created with self-made natural pigments and brushes. A part of the sale proceeds from this show is being donated to the Himalayan Rilung Foundation by the participant artists to support its work in experiential hands-on learning and the protection of the natural Himalayan environment.
Gallery Art Positive’s Art Residency
Imagine going back in time, when pigment was created from natural substances like bark, broken stones, mud, brick, extracted saffron and charcoal mixed with egg tempera. That happened during an art residency at the eco-diversity (an ecological university) Rilung Mountain-Wind Campus in Bhuira village, Himachal Pradesh in June. The resultant exhibition, ‘The Earth Our Home’, premiers at Gallery Art Positive, this new year, 2025.
What’s Special About The Earth My Home
‘The Earth My Home’, is an exhibition of artwork created in the natural environment of the beautiful and calming campus, which ensued from 4th to 10th June 2024. The camp included seven women artists from Delhi, Australia and Himachal Pradesh. It was facilitated by Bettina (Bina) Van Haeften, a Wild Art artist from Australia, a Mountain Wind faculty and organised by the director of MW Foundation, Ritu-Ngapnon Varuni. The process and artwork are a result of the week-long residency.
Who were the Featured Artists in the Mountain Wind Residency?
The featured artists are Bettina Van Haeften, Georgina Maddox, Alka Mathur, Pooja Hada, Jasmeet Khurana, Sharmila Gupta, Shalinee Ghosh, Nishi Jauhar, and Ritu-Ngapnon Varuni. The participating artists are well-known women artists from Delhi and Mumbai. The show is curated by Georgina Maddox, a Delhi-based art critic and curator who participated in the course and did a half-day session on Art Curation.
Alka Mathur on Gallery Art Positive’s MW Residency
Alka Mathur is a visual artist who works with mixed media. She is an alumna of the Sir JJ School of Art, Mumbai, India. Nature plays a significant role in her work. The contours and cracks of the parched land of her home, Rajasthan, have always found their way into her relationship with the material – the rustic, frayed edges which are worked over but never refined. “I have been exploring traditional methods and materials to create, mostly non-representational assemblages, mostly abstract, influenced by the textures and my emotional response to nature. I felt a complete connection and a lightness in the calm environment at MW, which influenced the output of my works I feel,” says Mathur.
Bettina Van Haeften on The Earth My Home
Bettina Van Haeften’s artwork ranges from textile art and weaving to sculpture and festival installations. “My passion as an artist is strongly connected to my relationship with nature. For me, creating artwork is a conscious interaction with the materials the natural landscape provides. I take particular care in the choice of my materials – my approach is qualitative, not quantitative. My pieces reflect the slow process of creation,” says Van Haeften, adding, “The artwork presented in this exhibition is testimony that nature can provide everything for us we need, and will open the audience’s awareness of their connection to their bioregion and that we are all part of it. An exhibition like this, showcasing artwork solely created with natural materials, rekindles and fosters people’s relationship with their immediate natural environment and nature in general.”
The Artworks in Gallery Art Positive’s Exhibition
The artwork showcased at this exhibition is entirely made with natural pigments and brushes. They are made from stones, leaves and bark sourced from the natural Himalayan Forest environment around our Mountain Wind Campus and the shibori work is completely made from self-made natural dyes. The display’s unique and special quality is the fact that the only market materials used in producing all the art pieces are paper, canvas and calico/ natural cotton cloth.
Jasmeet Khurana on Natural Dyes in the Exhibition
“Using natural pigments felt like reclaiming an ancient rhythm. It slowed me down, demanding patience and an openness to the unpredictable. Handmade brushes created from twigs and leaves added a tactile intimacy to each stroke, as though the forest itself was guiding my hand. The resulting artworks carried an authenticity that industrial tools can never replicate,” says Jasmeet Khurana whose journey from interior design to the arts reflects a visceral shift in her calling. She makes a thoughtful transition into the world of abstraction. After a decade of working with furniture and floor plans, she realized her passion lay in the interplay of colour, form, and texture. “I am sure the viewers will connect to the works as there is authenticity and originality in the works. The colours are all earthy and so soothing to the eyes,” she adds.
Pooja Hada Reflects on the Natural Environment
The works speak a language which speaks nature in a very contemporary style and I feel it is exactly what an art lover and today’s day and age buyer is seeking,” says Hada, who shifted from Interior Designer by education and a self-taught artist by passion. Her canvases portray Indian forms and motifs in all their warm, vibrant glory.
Shalinee Ghosh on Her Artistic Process During the MW Residency
Shalinee Ghosh is a Communication Design graduate from NID Ahmedabad. Her love for storytelling soon expanded to photographing Indian monuments, people, art and heritage – leading to the creation of FroggMag. Co-founded with Krishna.
“It was while collecting my materials and tools that I connected with and chose my subjects. Collecting from nature helps one feel at one with it. Everywhere you look, something waits to be expressed on an artist’s canvas—a branch, the texture of a stone, or a tree that continues to give even after it has borne its last fruit and shed its last leaf. Its bare branches support little vines as they begin their journey into life and shelter those who want a little snooze in the sun,” says Ghosh.
Sharmila Gupta on The Earth My Home Artworks
Sharmila Gupta, a self-taught painter who did a one-year course in painting from Sir JJ School of Art, Mumbai in 2015, has re-discovered a deep connection to the world of Nature, “It was a unique experience crushing stones and making pigments. I have created five more paintings on canvas only out of these stone pigments available from other mountain ranges. This process was very impactful and it has made me sensitive in my approach towards using colors now. My works tell a story of my poetry compositions and forms. The rich colour, texture, and consistency of these mediums are worlds apart from any synthetic medium. I am getting a grip of its quality and the process of use,” says Gupta.
Ritu Ngapnon Varuni’s Take on Galley Art Positive’s Exhibition
Trained as an architect and a student of Buddhist philosophy and psychology, Ritu Ngapnon Varuni wears many hats and names along with her many homes! As an eco-architect, craft designer, creative thinking educator, writer, poet and natural Himalayan farmer; she is an explorer at heart. “This exhibition is not only unusual in its content and highly contextual given the global climate, but we also believe it to be the first of its kind in the country; where all the non-traditional artists have used only natural self-made brushes and self-made 100% natural paints in all the artwork,” says Ngapnon-Varuni.
Image Courtesy – Georgina Maddox
Georgina is an independent critic-curator with 18 years of experience in the field of Indian art and culture. She blurs the lines of documentation, theory and praxis by involving herself in visual art projects. Besides writing on immersive art for STIRworld, she is a regular contributor for The Hindu, MASH Mag and Architectural Digest.
