Navivasi means ‘new fragrance’ and Ajay Dhapa uses the floral carpet to represent our land with humour and sensitivity
Drawing from personal experience, Ajay Dhapa’s works engage elegantly and lightly with expressing the socio-political milieu of his hometown. Brought up in a multi-religious locality where different communities live in perfect harmony and interdependence, his paintings, he says, are expressions of his search for the truth.
With the help of miniaturist imagery, he enhances various childhood memories to create an involvement of events, space and time in his works. Treating the floral carpet design as a metaphor for our land and symbol of beautiful relationships, he superimposes various stills of situations which he recalls and recreates. His canvases are populated with characters referenced from Mughal and Pahadi miniatures to create interesting stories or situations on a large surface. Painting acts of mutual affection, dependency and harmony Dhapa paints the relevance of society in his hometown.
The artist hopes that the viewers look into the narrative and spot the hidden ‘treasures of thought’ when spending time with his work. He invites them to seek the fragrance of harmony experienced by the artist at Navivasi, the locality where he spent his growing up years.