Drawing Room: Deena Pindoria finds meaning in Gunjan Chawla Kumar’s art

Gunjan Chawla Kumar’s Sifr series is meditative and repetitive. It shows that something can come from nothing

Gunjan Chawla Kumar’s work seems simple, the lines minimalist and modern. It’s anything but. The artist draws on Indian and South-East Asian textiles and crafts, tribal and pre-historic arts, even archaeology for her works. They involve meticulous handmade processes and philosophical inquiry. It makes her practice both deeply personal and universal.

Gunjan Chawla Kumar’s works are created with pure coloured pigments on Indian muslin. She whirls her pigments like a dervish to create thousands of handmade cones. (Exhibit 320)

Gunjan Chawla Kumar’s ongoing series, Sifr, symbolises emptiness, and infinite potential despite it. (Exhibit 320)

In another series, Bandhani, Kumar uses bentonite clay and muslin to craft knot-like abstract pieces that reference the traditional Indian tie-dye craft of bandhej.