Himani Gupta’s Spatial Perspectives

Indian urbanist Himani Gupta’s art practice culls out emotional narratives shaped by spatial environments and explores how land and cities evolve and impact human behaviour and identity

The year is 1989. Tensions in the Middle East are rising, and the first Gulf War is set to begin in just a few months. Two expatriate Indian doctors are driving through the Iraqi countryside, their four-year-old daughter in tow. ‘Can we stop, please?’ asks the young girl, blissfully unaware, as the car approaches a wild strawberry farm. The parents look around for a minute and heed her request. ‘Be careful,’ they say as she steps out to pluck a few berries. But a wire-mesh fence surrounds the field and the girl’s hand gets stuck. As she turns around to call out for help, she sees something she doesn’t quite understand and will never quite forget.

‘I glimpsed armed, khaki-clad men walking towards us,’ recalls Himani Gupta. ‘My parents quickly got me back in the car, my hand bleeding, and we drove away. It’s something that’s remained etched in my memory all these years, triggering questions and informing my work.’ Gupta’s professional career, however, doesn’t fit neatly into a box. She holds degrees in business, fine arts, spatial design and urban planning, and has over the past 15 years designed retail and hospitality environments, served as financial advisor on multimillion-dollar real estate projects, drafted development plans for high-speed transit systems, and consulted on the Aga Khan Trust for Culture’s Nizamuddin Urban Renewal Initiative, a project that made it onto Time’s 2018 Greatest Places list.

‘I guess I’d call myself an urbanist,’ Gupta says. ‘I look at the world through the lens of space and navigation. That’s the thread that ties all of my work together.’ Since 2017, however, the polymath has focused her energies solely on her art practice, which draws from and builds on ideas of psychogeography: the exploration of the psychological effects of geographical environments. Beginning with a few group shows at local art galleries, Gupta has gone on to hold solo exhibitions at the India Art Fair, Durham University and UNESCO’s outpost in New Delhi. ‘I’m interested in how cities and communities evolve and impact identity,’ she says. ‘How do people interact with space and form associations –– of ownership, of belonging and of displacement?’

Gupta’s expression, which oscillates between abstractionism and conceptualism, is at once strikingly simple and incredibly complex. Armed with in-depth studies of land and human settlements, urban data, insights from varied stakeholders and visceral personal memories, she overlays a vibrant multitude of perspectives, sometimes conflicting, onto her canvas. Her work thus becomes more than just speculative commentary; it culls out balanced emotional narratives, almost mirroring the nuanced complexities of the relationship between man and environment. ‘Many of my independent investigations often become layers on other works,’ Gupta explains. The series Terra, for example, a study of the form, evolution and material composition of land, informs Preservation (Urban Burst series), which combines multiple sets of topographical data, urban character and culture into a riot of colour on canvas. The series, arguably the most representational work in her oeuvre, seeks to capture the rapid pace at which cityscapes are being transformed in the 21st century.

Gupta also isn’t merely an outside observer of the spaces her work illustrates; she’s occupied these spaces, lived in and navigated them, and interacted with their other inhabitants. Her formative years in war-torn Iraq and Kuwait, and subsequent travels to some of the most conflicted places in the world –– from Tibet and Kashmir to Syria –– are experiences that manifest in Mapping Landscapes. The series, which she created with materials like brick dusk, gold or copper leaf and graphite, is an exploration of moving borders and how they lead to inclusion, exclusion and othering.

Today, after years of studying formal notions of urban architectures and working within their strict confines, Gupta’s art practice represents her desire to ‘unlearn.’ Dreamscapes is a recent series of atmospheric vignettes that explore the visual continuum of land, sea and sky, and the transience of created spaces. ‘I see commonalities rather than differences,’ she explains. ‘Human experience transcends borders, nations, languages and cultures. The world is but one country.’

Text / Suneet Zishan Langar
Images / Profile image by Parul Kapur, artwork images courtesy of the artist