It is not often that an Indian artist gets to be ?associated? with an international luxury watch brand. Well, the legendary Harry Winston has chosen to felicitate the ?princess of Indian glass art?, Hemi Bawa. ?They discourage the use of the word brand ambassador,? she says, but feels the association will be nice for her, as it gives her greater international representation. The association is in shape of not another glowing glass masterpiece, but a book by Alka Pande, published by Roli Books, showcasing her creations over the years.
An intensely private person, Bawa?s output over the years has been prodigious. She started with oils, something she still does, but her real fame came with cast glass creations. ?My glass work has been better received, possibly because there are very few working in this format in India,? she explains.
?Glass is a tough yet fragile medium,? she says, adding, ?It is most unforgiving. One little mistake and it?s over. What I like about glass is its translucence traps and the way it reflects light.? Her interest in glass started after she saw works by international artists. Given the lack of training facilities in India, she went to St Martin College in England, where she honed her skills on fired cast glass sculptures.
Bawa?s inspiration continues to be the world around her. While there is little in India about cast glass, even the rest of her art is contemporary. ?My art has never been narrative; instead, I get my inspirations from all around me. It could just be a flash of colour, a beam of light or a very abstract thing,? she says. But aesthetics occasionally gets touched by the world beyond, as her recent show, Glass Dimensions, indicated. The works included Tsunami, which depicted heads in a boat, which was selected by an eminent panel for depiction in Sculpture News? latest edition, along with another of her works, Thinking Man. Whether it is Oil and Guns, which indicates the rise in violence, or School Children, in which she depicts a cycle rickshaw with children piled on it?all the outer world creeps in and shapes her as an artist. However, shapes, shadows, interplay of colours, lighting?she prefers fibre optic lighting as it does not heat up -have been central to her work as well.
?I prefer cast glass over blown glass, for which I use the lost wax technique and electrical furnaces,? she explains as her reason for the unusualness of her work in the Indian context. To that end, she had to set up her studio far away from her house. It had to be in an industrial area, in this case Faridabad, where she goes three to four times a week. ?I got electric furnaces made, got an electric generator as I could not have interruptions, glass cutting saws, glass grinding machines?all of which was expensive,? she admits. ?But the work is exciting and I love it,? she adds.
Her main art material, broken glass, is sourced from glass companies. ?It requires patience to understand the properties of glass and if I am mixing different kinds of glass, then I need to know how they will behave,? she explains. Her one regret is that glass companies often mix different kinds of broken glass. Bawa mixes other elements, such as steel, copper, aluminum, wood, pigments and fibre glass to get her desired results. Once she has put something in the furnace, she has to wait, and she fills the days in between painting. Heavier works may take anything from a week to ten days, she says.
Though Bawa?s interest in art had developed early in her childhood, she never attended art college. ?That would not have a good idea to my parents,? she says with a laugh. Having been married off at 19, she did start going to the fount of Delhi?s cultural activities, Triveni Kala Sangam, just a short distance from her new house at Hailey Road. A practice that remains to date, as she still goes there to paint and meet fellow artists at work.
A lot of her larger works are in public spaces, such as an 18-foot glass and aluminum sculpture for The Park in Chennai. Her work is also at Siddharth and Vasant Continental hotels in Delhi. In 1996, she was commissioned by Coca-Cola to create a sculpture for the Olympic Games, which is today at the company museum in Atlanta. Though many of the larger works have attracted more attention, for her, the size of the work depends on her mood. And she is as known for her lotus and water blossom motifs. ?Sometimes, it is easier to take home a smaller work,? she says, reflecting on her buyers. Her glass jewellery, showcased a few years earlier, sold out instantaneously. Today, even her lesser priced work would not cost below a lakh, while the upper end is in is multiples of that figure. Her emotional involvement with the work, however, is only till she is working on it. The central room of her house has her paintings, not her glass work. ?I cannot recreate a piece. Early on, I had made that mistake as a woman had asked me for a particular work, and I had said no problem. However, a year of trying, and I could not get the same result, which was not easy on either of us!?
While she is pleased about the increasing money and greater awareness about Indian art today, for her these considerations are secondary. ?For any artist who works from the heart, other things do not matter,? she says. She also appreciates that globally, there is greater recognition for Indian art.
Bawa, who was awarded a Padma Shri in 2009, is grateful that her work has been cherished widely. ?I have always done art for the love of it. And it?s a great feeling when your work is appreciated.? If this is not inspiration, then what is!
