Three years ago Rekha Rao left her studio in Mumbai to re-energise herself in new southern surroundings. Her new home, Bangalore, has inspired in her exuberant colour and new inventive, semi-narrative mark-making. In her recent paintings, descriptive and sparingly dispersed brushstrokes subtly outline and draw in the colour into the categories of meaning and symbolism for the viewer whilst at the same time disappearing to allow enjoyment of the very pigment itself and the careful placement of colour next to colour on the canvas. Self-expression is certainly of crucial importance to the artist, something she no doubt learnt from her father -celebrated artist, K.K. Hebbar. She remembers well the lessons her father bestowed upon her. She was always taught to see the world as artistic potential awaiting expression. Today, she differs from her father in the economy of meaning she gives to the viewer in her paintings. Whereas Hebbar often led you into a work by his artist hand, Rekha Rao lets you make sense of the journey for yourself. In her elimination of all that is unessential to her painterly projection of real life, she becomes an apparition appearing and disappearing in the broad brushstrokes; her authorial voice obscured and then suddenly clear. We make sense of her artful paintings by the colourful shadow she leaves behind her as she escapes from the work.
