Tarini Ahuja is a visual artist based in New Delhi, India. Adagio is her second solo exhibition where she will unveil a body of works created between 2019-2022. The word Adagio originates from the Italian phrase ‘ad agio’, which literally translates to - at ease. Conventionally used in music, Adagio describes the tempo of a passage that is to be played slowly, leisurely and gracefully – an apt description of Tarini’s painting process. She explores the ideas of fragility, memory, stillness, impermanence and restraint in her works through sensuous, luscious and intuitive marks while working with slowness and constant reflection.
“There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting…The degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting.” Milan Kundera, Slowness.
Tarini aims to capture the ephemeral in her paintings, fleeting moments from everyday help shape her dreamlike polychromatic works. She spends days mapping out colours and creating elaborate palettes, this is a crucial ingredient of her work along with being a cathartic part of her process. Her tendency to romanticise reality allows her to create her whimsical and abstract landscapes. Colour is her ever evolving source of inspiration and the quotidian her unexpected muse.
The process of painting for her is a deep exploration into the mesmeric language of abstraction which begins with elaborate plans, colour schemes and compositions. While painting she relishes the struggle to maintain control while anticipating that beauty which comes from the impulsive, the moment in which a single stroke can be perfect in its imperfection. Tarini creates scenarios and problems which only, she can solve, she builds structures and simultaneously obliterates them, she intuitively layers paint exposing and covering marks. She enjoys the tactile nature of painting and the paradox of her art where impulse and control, calm and chaos go hand in hand.