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Lot Essay
I want to create a language only with color and line, which will speak in their own voice.
-Sheila Makhijani
Born in 1962, Sheila Makhijani's lasting commitment to abstraction makes her oeuvre stand out in the landscape of contemporary art in South Asia. Over the course of her career spanning four decades, the artist "has steadfastly pursued her continuing interest in the vitality and spontaneity of the abstract form. On seeing Makhijani’s canvases, the first impact is of movement, forceful and definite. Rising vertically, diagonally, spreading, or converging they seem to expand beyond their frames. Planes of color jostle amongst themselves, merging and overlapping as if being directed by hidden energy fields under the canvas. Constructed with layers of paint, Makhijani creates depths with light filled planes alongside dense dark surfaces" (Sheila Makhijani, Talwar Gallery website, accessed July 2026).
Writing about Makhijani's creative process, Roobina Karode notes, "Dismissing impediments such as stylistic preoccupations or rule-bound working, aesthetic decisions are processed as she proceeds, with each brush stroke prompting and engaging with the other in a specific way with a fluid logic [...] Sheila's works strongly suggest the notion that art is only interested in its own reality and the expressive act, the powerful human tool works to rescue us from the factual and mundane reality" (R. Karode, 'The Secret Life of Sheila Makhikani', Art India, Vol. 4, Issue 4, October-December 1999, pp. 39, 41).
-Sheila Makhijani
Born in 1962, Sheila Makhijani's lasting commitment to abstraction makes her oeuvre stand out in the landscape of contemporary art in South Asia. Over the course of her career spanning four decades, the artist "has steadfastly pursued her continuing interest in the vitality and spontaneity of the abstract form. On seeing Makhijani’s canvases, the first impact is of movement, forceful and definite. Rising vertically, diagonally, spreading, or converging they seem to expand beyond their frames. Planes of color jostle amongst themselves, merging and overlapping as if being directed by hidden energy fields under the canvas. Constructed with layers of paint, Makhijani creates depths with light filled planes alongside dense dark surfaces" (Sheila Makhijani, Talwar Gallery website, accessed July 2026).
Writing about Makhijani's creative process, Roobina Karode notes, "Dismissing impediments such as stylistic preoccupations or rule-bound working, aesthetic decisions are processed as she proceeds, with each brush stroke prompting and engaging with the other in a specific way with a fluid logic [...] Sheila's works strongly suggest the notion that art is only interested in its own reality and the expressive act, the powerful human tool works to rescue us from the factual and mundane reality" (R. Karode, 'The Secret Life of Sheila Makhikani', Art India, Vol. 4, Issue 4, October-December 1999, pp. 39, 41).