Nidhi Sharma Paints the Silence of the Himalayas

A Puranik healer and Rekhi grandmaster Nidhi Sharma’s landscapes that open at the India Habitat Centre foyer are inspired by the Himalayas; however, they also seem to move beyond specific geography into something more psychological as well as deeply spiritual with an emotive echo. Nidhi says her works are born of her allegiance to her Guru Yoganand Paramhans author of Autobiography of a Yogi. Born of childhood memories of the lived experience, these works transform the mountain ranges into an inner landscape of deeper dimensions and gravitas.

Nidhi, an artist of intensity and intrinsic depth and grace says: “ The Himalayas are the starting point for my work, but I don’t delve on a particular mountain, forest, or location. The physical form of the place is reduced to an emotional residue in which what surfaces is the quality of light, the feeling of stillness, as well as fleeting memories.The atmosphere of the place lingers long after I have returned home.

Over time, these experiences become layered with personal memories, reflections, and imagination. My paintings give form to that inner terrain within me. They are less about geography and more about perception, memory, and the emotional spaces we carry within us.”

Echoes of silence as a title is central to this exhibition, both as a theme and a process.Curatorial advisor Uma Nair an abstract and landscape lover says :

“ The foyer as an exhibition space is historic though it is small. Its most important exhibition was that of Homai Vyarawalla’s photographs in 2010 which I had to review for Economic Times.Its a wonderful space for an artist to show

Nidhi Sharma has painted the Indian Himalayas all through her life and in this small suite at India Habitat Centre, we see that the lofty mountains have always been an important part of her mental landscape long after she left those environs and moved to Mumbai.Echoes of Silence invites human contemplation .She makes us think of the passage of silence that evolves from time to eternity , from the Maya of appearance to the absolute. These idyllic landscapes bring alive the phrase Tat Tvam Asi, Thou art that.Her life and tenure as a Pranic healer and rekhi Guru adds to the islands of silence in her works. ”

Nidhi’s landscapes lift our tired minds out of the toils and tribulations of the moment into the timeless world of forms that are imprinted from our old album of memories. What she paints is not what the eye sees in replica but it is rather the response of her heart and soul to the visual impact of the atmospherics and the unending undulations of the Himalayan skies and backdrops .

She says she would persist painting them for nearly thirty years in portraying the complexity of the sylvan scenes through its timeless terrain as well as its stark contrasts and soft hues , inviting our gaze to ponder over the trajectory that lies between mortality and divinity, the celebration of life and the odyssey of living.

This show of around 20 paintings is as much about the power of the atmospherics of colour. From the rhapsody of blue to the blush pink skies and the emerald green landscapes, each vista offers vignettes of endless beauty in the grain of geophysical gravitas.