We are pleased to present, for the first time in Singapore, paintings by acclaimed Delhi-based artist Olivia Fraser (b. 1965, London), best known for melding the formal traditions of Indian miniature painting with repetitive meditative motifs, Fraser has created a distinct visual language that brings to life intangible spiritual concepts.
Fraser, whose work is in the collections of the Museum of Sacred Art, Brussels, and the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, has exhibited widely across South Asia where she has lived since 1989.
When Fraser first arrived in Delhi, she naturally began painting from life, using watercolours to depict the monuments and people around her. "I was like a travel painter depicting the 'other,' " she says. "I began as an outsider wanting to connect to India and soon found a way through learning the visual language of miniature painting as well the physical language of yoga." These practices offered her an entry point into the culture that spoken language could not, and helped her cultivate a deep sense of belonging. They also led her to investigate a different method of looking. Instead of gazing outward to capture scenes around her, she began honing what she describes as "inner perception."
Her most recent series of intricate, jewel-toned works explore this inward journey. Fraser was inspired by a previously untranslated circa eighteenth-century Sanskrit manual of yoga called the Gheranda Samhita. The text describes in vivid detail an imagined paradise which an enlightened yogi may reach through meditation. One extract describes a sacred landscape: "In every direction are kadamba trees with abundant flowers and it is ringed with a kadamba forest like a stockade, where the scents...of flowers perfume every quarter." The text from the Gherandha Samhita then continues, mentioning all the senses: the scent of flowers (smell), the fruit trees (taste), bees buzzing and cuckoos calling (sound), all visualised (sight) by the yogi "steadying himself" (touch). The text has guided Fraser's journey, both visually and artistically, echoing her meditation practice. All of the paintings in this exhibition relate in some way to this text. Temple II, 2022 for example, depicts trees laden with ripe mangoes—the mango tree associated with the sacred and wish-fulfillment in India.
In other works, Fraser focuses on parts of the human body, such as eyes, which for her reference the practice of darshan, the act of beholding a holy person or sacred object. She explores the idea that the act of looking can itself be a method of worship and a means of creating a powerful connection in a spiritual context. In Pilgrimage, 2023, feet adorned with lotuses reference Fraser's own experience performing pilgrimages across India as well as the idea of a transcendent journey within the mind.
Working in the tradition of Indian miniature painting, Fraser uses brushes that end in a single hair allowing her to create exceptionally delicate forms. She first began exploring miniatures in the 1980s shortly after arriving in the country. After encountering Pichwai paintings—a form of religious artwork made using intricate designs often depicting scenes from the life of Lord Krishna—she joined a gurukul, a traditional miniature-painting studio, in Jaipur and then another in New Delhi where she studied under masters of the form. In Jaipur, she observed the artisans making their own pigments using kharia or chalk from surrounding cliffs, tree sap, and soot from oil lamps. She likewise learned to make pigments, crushing semi-precious stones such as malachite or lapis and grinding plants and earth, which she then bound with Arabic gum to create paint. Today, she continues to use these materials, and paints on handmade paper.
Fraser describes her process as an extension of her yogic meditative practice which involves visualisations of nature. To amplify the spiritual ideas she explores and allow viewers to experience respite from the physical world, she often incorporates hypnotic patterns inspired by Op Art. She describes the experience of encountering her works as putting your vision into a peaceful almost trance-like state.
Press release courtesy Sundaram Tagore Gallery.
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