Stripped down to its basics, an artwork is all about shapes and lines. In the exhibition entitled ‘Mysterious Lines’ presented by Art Konsult Gallery, artists Dheeraj Yadav and curator Vandana Sehgal have tried to capture the essence of line art. For the artist, lines represent a certain kind of energy he derives from his parents. He says, “I want to express what I feel and I do that through my line works, which are present in my drawings. I titled the exhibition ‘Mysterious Lines’ because mystery is seen by different people in different ways. I feel lines alone convey my soul and my thoughts.”

Yadav comes from Uttar Pradesh where, growing up, he saw people worship Hindu Gods. He has used this as a reference point in his artwork and says, “In most of my artwork, you will see a female body figure. Alongside, there are often elements from nature which can be, say, a leaf, or anything related to it.” He also adds, “I work with pencil and mixed medium, mostly on paper, and the recent creations in this exhibition have been done on books. I used original books — their chapters or their title — related them with my drawings, and composed all of them to try and make a whole image.”

One of the paintings, which Dheeraj highlights from the exhibition, is painted on canvas and is called Mother with Me. In this painting, he has tried to represent his mother and her different faces. He reveals, “This painting is close to my heart and is full of line work. I have also used colours such as yellow and red, and also dark colours, because I feel that represents maturity and faith.”