Mekhlla is a Contemporary Indian artist. Born in Solan. She graduated from Sir J.J School of Art, Mumbai in 1990. She got the prestigious Scholarship as a Research Grant Awardee from the Lalit Kala Academy 1991-92. Completed her Master in Fine Art from the College of Art, New Delhi in 1996. Traveled to Germany for an exchange program of artists. The same year she was granted a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague , Netherlands, 1998. Received the AIFACS award in 1996 for her drawing.
In 2005 she got the B.C Sanyal Award. SEED Grant 2023. She has been involved in the field of art education since 1999 while showing her works in galleries in group shows and solo shows.
In addition to her artistic practice, Mekhlla is strongly committed to social and environmental issues.
She focuses on sustainability by recycling paper waste and producing acid-free, handmade paper, which she uses for art objects and design products. Her commitment to environmentally friendly practices is reflected in both her work and her teaching methods. In her recent work, she explores the changing nature of the landscape and the impact of human intervention on nature. The series "Anatomy of a Landscape" (2020-2024) consists of charcoal drawings on Nepalese handmade paper. In them, she depicts desolate, drought-stricken landscapes, in which heavy, water-laden clouds are a recurring motif. In her compositions, she inverts the natural elements: water appears as an inverted river in the sky, trapped in swirling clouds, ready to crash down onto the barren landscape below.
Mekhlla’s drawings from 2020-2022 show a world in transition—nature in turmoil, landscapes marked by human construction and disrupted balances. Titles such as Untitled Landscape, Silent Landscape, A Desolate Landscape, Off the Road Landscape, Going Nowhere, Multi-perspective, Forgotten Landscape, Marked Landscape, and Horizons (2022) reflect the melancholy and power of her work.
Her visual language challenges the viewer to introspection and offers a poetic, yet critical view of the contemporary relationship between man and nature.
PARTICIPATED IN GROUP SHOWS
At Quartair: Art Initiatives for Contemporary Art, The Hague, Netherlands a group show titled OPEN. (in 2020 and 2022)
Kala Srot in association with Niv art gallery New Delhi, in celebration of Lucknow Kala Mahaotsav (2015).
"Art Konsult group show Of Veracity and Chimera", IAF collateral Group Show, Lado Sarai,
New Delhi (2015).
Invited as one of the 10 women artists, All Women-International Artists Residency at the Goa Chitra Museum (2014).
Group Show "Che Guevara" Cuban Embassy and Travancore gallery New Delhi(2006).
"Hiroshima: NEVER AGAIN", curated by Suneet Chopra at the Academy of Fine Art Literature, Srifort, New Dehli.
Group show "Cause for Kashmir" at Shangrila Hotel New Delhi.
Group Show curated by Suneet Chopra commemorating the ‘Korean War’ at Art Konsult,
Haus Khas Village New Delhi.
Group show at Birla Academy, Calcutta. (2000).
“Edge of the Century " group show curated by Amit Mukhopadhyay New Delhi, shown in 100 galleries across Delhi.
“Cyclone Orissa” group show at Rabindra Bhawan, New Delhi.
Group Exhibition at HET FORT, Stroom, The Hague, Netherlands (1998).
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Two-man show at Gallery Muse, Inderlok Hotel, Dehradun, "From the soil to the clouds” with Thom Vink 2023.
Three man Show, "Recurring Figures", at ART KONSULT Gallery, 23 Haus Khas Village New Delhi 2007.
"A BODY OF MY WORKS" at Palm Court, India Habitat Center, 2001.
"Symbol for Mankind: hands of Faith and Trust”, Galerie Bosenanger, Chemnitz, Germany 1998.
"Watercolours"@KBAK, Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, Netherlands 1998.
Three-man show: Anupam Sud, Mekhlla, and Avijit Roy in Germany, sponsored by BRITA 1997.
"The symbol for Mankind: hands of Faith and Trust" @ Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi 1996.
ARTISTS STATEMENT
Landscapes in angst and fury.
Charcoal Drawings on Nepali Handmade paper.2020-2022
The global climate is degenerating rapidly due to interventions by humankind in the garb of
progress, creating dangerous weather conditions. While the Covid 19 came as a shock to the whole world, a pandemic that took everyone by surprise, leading to social distancing to a level no one had ever experienced.
It was a long period of dealing with external and internal turmoil.
As a visual artist, I chose to respond through my drawings in charcoal of Landscapes that are desolate and parched, sans water. (each 19 x 30 inches, on Nepali handmade paper.
Recurring forms of ‘stone-like’ heavy clouds are seen in my works, clouds laden with water.
Water instead is depicted inverted in my drawings, the clouds in the sky, swirling, pregnant with water, moving like inverted rivers, to fall anytime onto the desolate landscapes.
The drawings that I have created during this time are representative of a feeling of having a
connection with nature in its angst and fury. Desolate landscapes represent the threat and void that our planet faces today.
Urbanization feels like a personal loss to me. In my recent drawings, “The changing anatomy of a landscape” the disappearing nature is a poignant reminder of the loss of natural landscapes. A fallen tree, leftovers of unfinished buildings, stacked logs, a burning bush that are reminders of human intervention that mars the vast scapes.
MEKHLLA HARRISON
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