top of page

Visual
Translator

Egg-Temperas

Oil Paintings

Drawings

SELECTED WORK

Get to Know Her

Painting to Jyotika Sehgal is...

“While painting, I talk to myself in the language I am going to express, so it is the visual language. I communicate by sketching, drawing, adding colour nuances, and so on. So I have many visual backup materials for my work where I read and write my pictures. I oscillate between the languages, lingual and visual, elaborating on the text both in words and in pictures.”

“While elaborating on these for painting, I indulge in expressional fantasies according to my present mental space. For me, art, both as an act of creation and the outcome, is a fantastic phenomenon. I see my painting capture not just one particular expression in time but perpetuate in its totality. It imbibes many precious moments of my life, both from the conscious and the subconscious. I surrender to become a part of the life of that painting.”

Egg-Tempera

2011, National Academy Award in Painting, Lalit Kala Akademi, India.

“In my practice based doctoral research, I sought to inquire and explore the form, extent, and constraints involved in a ‘lingual-to-visual’ rendering process. I chose to work from the poetic texts of Mirza Ghalib and selected four of his Ghazals with four Shers (couplets) each. The fundamental element I identify in Ghalib’s texts and which runs like a red thread throughout his poetry, is the tension between the ‘being’ and the ‘being-not’, and within this dichotomy, seeing its release in the element of hope. Far from glorifying death, when he speaks of his ‘being-not’, he celebrates life, viewing himself in the varied ways of his ‘being’ and his aspirations.”

“Mediating between the peripheries of two language systems, I was more than convinced that my handling of the medium of Egg-Tempera was suitable for my translation activity. This technique was an apt choice, conducive to the cognitive process of the translation act. Just as a poetic text is layered in its meaning, so is this painting technique. After repeated applications of ultra-thin colour glazes for over 300 times, gradually, the final painted surface emerges.”

Jyotika Sehgal continues, “The medium of Egg-Tempera is a painting technique known of the Old Masters of the West and is a forerunner of the Oils. Once introduced to this medium in 1991 by French artist Christian Puard, I became addicted to the medium. The painted surface achieved through this medium is impossible in any other. Painting in Egg-Tempera also sensitised my way of painting the Oils.”

Oil On Canvas

1987, Sahitya Kala Parishad, Yuva Mahotsav Award, New Delhi, India

Recent:

The Wise Owl Series

A few earlier ones:

Drawings

bottom of page