Nasreen Mohamedi developed an extraordinarily reduced language of lines, grids and empty paper in post-Independence India. During the 1970s her drawings became increasingly rigorous, often using ink and graphite to create geometric structures that seem to hover somewhere between architecture, landscape and pure abstraction. Her photographs and private diaries reveal another side of the same attention to structure, shadow, repetition and space.
Mohamedi followed a path quite different from the figurative and narrative approaches that dominated much Indian modernism around her. Her work only gained sustained international visibility much later.
What interests me is how much tension she could produce with so little material.
A few diagonal lines can suggest depth.
A small change in spacing creates acceleration.
An empty region of paper can feel more active than the marks surrounding it.
That economy is difficult.
Adding another element is easy because it gives the eye something new.
Removing elements means every remaining decision has to work harder.
There is something close to music in that discipline.
Silence does not weaken a composition when the sounds around it justify the space.
Mohamedi’s drawings make empty paper behave the same way.
https://archive.knma.in/nasreen-mohamedi-museo-nacional-centro-de-arte-reina-sofia-madrid-spain-0
#NasreenMohamedi #IndianModernism #GeometricAbstraction #Drawing
