A mouthful of sky

HE’S looking at sharing an experience, a moment rather than a canvas. So if you walk into the Vaishwik Art Environment in Aundh, you’ll be greeted not by a line of paintings, but a row of small rectangular slides on the walls, each bearing an impression of the sky. Move on to the room in front and the thin film of curtain parts to reveal a space full of smoke and light through which you are requested to take a leisurely walk. Finally you come out to behold a large structure of pipes that seem to be reaching up towards the roof through many twists and turns. A peep into the opening at your end, however, provides you with a glimpse of the clear blue sky, despite the turns of the pipe. This has been attained through the clever use of mirrors. ‘‘What we are presenting is an interactive, surreal experience of the sky-complete with the clouds and the light,’’ smiles Hetal Shukla, the Mumbai based artist who took one and half months to put together this unusual exhibition for Pune. ‘‘I wanted the concept to come out just right. There is no sale of paintings, no interpretations of canvases. What I am excited about is the reaction people will have to this form of experimental art and the experience they get here,’’ says the artist who plans to replicate the exhibition at other places after Pune. With Finolex, understandably sponsoring the exhibition, even the invite is in the form of a pipe. ‘‘A film will also be screened on the first floor on the theme of the sky and smoke,’’ adds Shula who has an ‘‘interior graphics’’ firm called Offbeat and has also learnt Creative Drawing and Camera Less photography from Central saint Martins College of Art and Design London. This is the 30-year old artist’s second exhibition in Pune and will be on from March 11 to 17. Hetal Shukla’s installation art exhibition using industrial pipes is unusual and intriguing.Sunanda Mehta