AUTHOR: GREGORY MINISSALE
PUBLICATIONS: NULL
DATED: NULL

Meher Afrozes paintings, currently on display at the Chawkandi gallery, Clifton have to be seen to be believed.

While on paper, her work may seem to be rather unadventurous, with very little variety in composition, Meher has created some evocative textures and lyrical interplays of colour that can only really be appreciated with a close up view.

“I have placed limitations on my composition so that other elements can come into play” says the artist.

In what amounts to a complete rejection of more traditional ideas of space and depth, Meher has emphasised surfaces and textures that seem to constantly shift tone before the eye.

A sombre mood prevails, despite the savage primitivism of her mask-like faces. Often a strategic flash of magenta or lapis blue arrests the eye. Olive greens and ochres merge into rustic backdrops, raw sienna and beige resemble old terracotta surfaces, speckled and made to look eroded.

Much of Mehers work is a strange illusionism. Nowhere has she tried to show us a window on reality, but by imitating vaguely familiar surfaces (autumnal leaves, cloth, (ceramic glazes) she gives us snatches of various other realities in new contexts. “I have tried to evolve a new painterly vocabulary,” says Meher. By making her surfaces speak out, the artist may well have come close to achieving this aim. The faces are secondary to the sensuous.