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'Portrait of a Time' is a series by Maitreyee Nimbolkar, a 33-year-old self-taught visual artist from Pune. In seven years of practice, her works have evolved from realistic towards a combination of elements of realism and abstraction to create a visual experience of my memories, dreams or thoughts for the viewer.
This series seeks to convey through a unique visual experience, the portrait of the current times that the beings on the earth are going through, using a visual experience akin to cave paintings.
"I find the fact that man drew and painted some 60,000 years ago when he had to struggle just to survive extremely hopeful. Thus, though the inherent theme, ‘Portrait of a time’ seeks to explore environmental issues exacerbated by human behaviour and greed, the visual experience retains a meditative quality about it." - Maitreyee
Visits to culturally and aesthetically rich Buddhist paintings at Ajanta as well as the recently discovered petroglyphs in Konkan region have significantly influenced the expressions.
About the works in this series
Portrait of a time – I, II, III: Focusing on elephants, collage works I and II explore the themes of man-animal conflict, hunting for ivory, reducing habitats and resultant decline in the population of the herds, highly questionable government endorsed practices such as culling and many more using a cave painting alike visual experience. In the third collage work, sea horses clutching to pieces of plastic wastes for support in their tails (instead of sea weeds) is a commentary demonstrating the impact of human invention and intervention in the marine life.
The artworks IV and V which are inspired from an instance of wild forest fires and an image of a herd of elephants sleeping like babies after being exhausted from an inexplicable migration are rendered on a panel to highlight the cave painting alike visual and convey the sense of inevitability.
View the series below:
For the love of art,
Maitreyee Nimbolkar
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