Venus Sanghvi creates a representation of abstraction and symbol, incorporating her personal everything with spiritual nothingness to form a unique visual language. By working with materials such as sindoor and abir and incorporating the chimes signifying the Bija mantra, she brings a sense of ritualism into her art. There are deeper and often introspective themes related to identity or rather the self in relation to society, presented through these elements that go beyond mere decoration.
Sanghvi distinguishes herself in her ability to move beyond traditional genre lines. She weaves in and out of centuries, effortlessly splicing mediums and techniques one might easily classify: A summation impossible to pin down.. There is substance in her layered composition, both literally and metaphorically, forcing viewers to dig deeper below the facade into her narrative. The use of scripts in her works also provide a textural quality that turn her canvases into intricate, almost palimpsestic compositions where the meaning is both ambiguous and shifting.
It can be seen in the way she gravitates towards historic monuments and cultural diversity — not just as subjects — but also in her manner of selecting materials and forms. This aspect of her work seems to call for a conversation with the past, but at heart she is contemporary. The rhythmic patterns and visual formations appear as poetry as the mind flows through multiple planes of meaning where space and colour converge challenging familiar modes of perception.
While each series Natasha produces is born from her own experience, she taps into emotions and themes we can all relate to. It is this tension between personal and collective experience that gives her work much of its charge. Sanghvi’s work is not casual, it takes time to engage with, reflect on and move around the rich interface of sensation and connotation. It is a deep, multifaceted body of work that rewards viewers who are willing to take the time with rich intertextual experiences that outlast their initial encounter.
