The Open Studio / Nikita Dhali
Nikita Dhali
Taalash (Finding)
Two faces lean close, held by lines that never break
Two heads of burnt orange lean in until their lips almost touch.
Inside each head a spiral turns like the rings of a cut tree.
One face glows hot. The other has cooled to the pink of evening.
Between them a dark vessel rises out of maroon earth.
Cracks run through the paint like dry mud in May.
Nothing here is still. Every line keeps going round.
The work
Nikita Dhali paints spirals. Each spiral is a circle made without a break in the line. The spirals begin after Dhali finishes a Bachelor's in Painting. There is no teacher now to set rules. So Dhali asks, "Now what should I paint?" Patterns come first. Then comes the unbroken circle. In Taalash, two faces meet on a round canvas. Fine spiral lines fill both heads and the dark space between them. Dhali is now a Master's student at MSU Baroda in Vadodara.
In the artist’s words
“The word for me is not 'difficult' but separation, the separation from my core. I feel I was meant to make spirals from the beginning. Yet again and again I got separated from them. I had to go deep inside myself again, totally submerging myself. The spirals chose me. They became my breath, my sadhana.”
- Theme
- Return to the core
- Material
- Acrylic on canvas
- Size
- 60.96 × 60.96 × 5 cm
- Year
- 2026
- Edition
- 1
- Framed
- No
- About the artist
- The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda
- From
- vadodra
- Code
- RC-474
