Somewhere between a genius and an enigma, a devotee of abstract art possesses a mind that is hopelessly inscrutable, yet as beautiful as a rainbow. Add to these qualites the rare skill to portray emotions, spiritualism, nature and beauty in colour, and what you have is an abstract painter. With all these unusual elements meandering restlessly through the artist’s creative mind, artists, it seems, are born, not made! One fine example of an abstract artist who has taken her art from India to the best galleries around the world is Sujata Bajaj.

The last of Radhakrishnaji and Anasuyadevi Bajaj’s five children, she was born in Jaipur in 1958. Immersed deeply in patriotism and spiritualism, her parents sought to inculcate in her the values of exactness, honesty and devotion to duty very early in life. Understandably, they were an extension of their own cherished ideals as followers of Mahatma Gandhi and Vinoba Bhave.





The budding artist

Bajaj’s life, until adolescence, was spent in her native Jaipur. These formative years shaped the painter in her, aided by Rajasthan’s all-encompasing passion for colour. While for most children, colours hold only a passing fascination, for Bajaj they seemed like footprints that beckoned her like a cosmic calling to forge a connect with higher, more sublime realms. It was her mother who first noticed her love of drawing when she was barely three years old. The urge to draw was like a conscious effort of self-expression, rather than a cultural compulsion foisted by elders.

It was not until high school, however, that Bajaj seriously began to think of art as a career. Her tryst began with her enrolment at SNDT College in Pune. The very first of her successes came with her graduating with a gold medal in art and painting. The artist in her had just bloomed—and she was not yet 20 years old! Pune, the city which set her on the road to success, will never cease to hold a special place in her heart. It was here that she met M R Kelkar, an artist and a professor of fine arts, who tutored, encouraged and helped her. The interactions served to hone her skills and before long, at Pune’s premium Bal Gandharva Art Gallery, an emotional Bajaj had the very first solo exhibition of her works.

Inspiration

Tribal art has always held a special fascination for Sujata Bajaj; they conjure memories of her travels with her father as a child. “I would follow my father to the villages, where the pictures, motifs and unusual artistic designs appearing on the walls, floors and other aspects of tribal life would fascinate me,” reminisces Bajaj.