31 March,2013 07:29 AM IST | | Moeena Halim
Wooden boxes in Nisreen Moochhala's Life Around Us represent the matchbox houses people in the city are wont to live in.
An untitled painting from Nisreen Moochhala's Life Around Us
The artist, who has been painting her observations of urban life for the past 15 years, decided to move from miniatures to this style of 3D art about five years ago. "I was living in Kolkata when I first began thinking about issues of space. I enjoyed painting my neighbours and depicting people looking out the window," says the artist. Moochhala, who now lives in Pune, says the new city inspired her to add trees to her work. But her paintings, she insists, could be set anywhere between "here and Timbuktu."
The collection, which will be on display for two weeks at the Tao Art Gallery in Worli, includes 24 paintings. "Only three of these are flat paintings. The rest are all either painted wooden boxes or three canvases, which I have put together as installations. In some cases I have used paper to create figures," says Moochhala, who uses a combination of pencil and water colours. "I also enjoy using acrylic paints, because it dries faster and provides far more vivid colours than water colours," she explains.
