The pictorial world of Rini Dhumal is an amalgam of myth and realism, where nostalgia and sombre tones meet to create powerful protagonists that exude raw primal energy. We see representations of memory and recollection, distilled by her imagination which emerges from deep convictions and courage.
Incarnations of the quintessential Indian Woman-quiet, with aloof confidence and devoid of any fragility-dominate the earthy landscapes. Stories of displacement, chance encounters and tales of far-away lands, integrating with symbolism and perception, are all part of her oeuvre. One comes upon, at once, the universality and intimate familiarity in the fluid forms.
Trained as a painter, Rini Dhumal has experimented with every conceivable medium ranging from print-making, graphics, ceramics, with fantastic results, and created a cultural vocabulary uniquely her own. Her sketchbooks, with jottings of her initial responses before they take shape as paintings or other artworks, reveal the coming together of her hand and spirit. Drawing upon a storehouse of historical details, the splendours of her childhood and anecdotal references from various travels, she creates a vivid aesthetic in her art-making.
We live today in a multicultural world. We can now go from one part of the world to another in a few hours; and the new information highway familiarises the people of one part of the world with the culture and customs of another. This has led to many gainful interactions and these, in turn, have persuaded each cultural group to reinterpret its heritage and enlarge its dimensions. The resultant fluidity is the hallmark of modernity. It is also true that, while spinning in this global vortex, many individuals and groups want to preserve a sense of identity.
Rini Dhumal is a product of this new world. Having started her artistic career in the 1960s, she was not affected deeply by certain features of the Indian art scene that preceded this-the early attraction for Western art forms and manners of the nineteenth century, then a subsequent effort to replace these with so-called indigenous alternatives, and a little later, a desire to keep abreast with the changing trends in the modern art scene in the West. Besides, she studied in a fine-art institution, the M.S. University in Baroda, that tried, in its limited way, to understand, analyse and rationalise the details of this passage, pointing out its successes and failures and giving the emerging Indian artists a total perspective that could help them make intelligent choices.
Rini went to Paris soon after she finished her studies in art and made her debut in the Indian art scene. She worked in the printmaking studio of Sir S.W. Hayter and his close associate, Krishna Reddy. She admits that she was not taken up with Hayter's technical approach, but responded more readily to Reddy's poetic one. She was also not too enamoured by pure abstraction; the human image remained for her a continuing obsession. Her days in Paris gave her an opportunity to survey the spectrum of world art from the earliest phases to the present; and it had enough examples that convinced her about the durability of the human image.
Rini returned home after her first exposure to the world art scene, as an accomplished printmaker and painter. She also made short forays into other art media like ceramics and bronze, and techniques like vitreous enamel and reverse painting. And, on the side, she chose to teach in her alma mater and did so for long years. Although she withdrew from this commitment some time ago, she is still sought after for advice and counsel by art educational agencies.
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