Jyoti Nagpal
Artist of Light
“Nature represents for me movement, fulfillment, warmth, mellowness, harmony, exuberance, a celebration of life, indeed the very “joie de vivre”. I paint simple objects of nature and strive to portray the luminosity and stillness of the stopped moment.”
_ Jyoti Nagpal
Educated in USA, France and India, Jyoti completed her postgraduate studies in Romance Languages majoring in French Literature, Culture and Civilization from Boston College, Massachusetts, USA. Being a keen student of French, she taught for more than twenty years in Chandigarh, Kashmir and Delhi, before she finally took up painting as a full time activity.
Inspired by the nineteenth and twentieth century Impressionists, Jyoti chose the medium of oil painting and mastered the technique of ‘wet on wet’ to express her fascination with Nature.
In this endeavor, she has brilliantly broken away from the conventional rules and restrictions of traditional oil painting. For her,” A painting, like a poem, is the expression of an idea in a condensed form. It offers a different interpretation to different individuals and is a unique experience for the artist and the viewer alike.”
His Excellency K.R.Narayanan, the then Vice President of India, introduced Jyoti to the ‘art world’. Jyoti’s first solo exhibition, entitled, “Fall Foliage”, was held in May 1993 at the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society Gallery in New Delhi. The exhibition was sponsored by Vadehra Art Gallery and was inaugurated by HE K.R. Narayanan.
While living in the UAE, with her husband, a renowned health policy strategist, Jyoti secured a respected niche for herself in the art world through her passionate, vivacious and joyful work.
She exhibited extensively at the national art galleries and cultural foundations. During her exhibitions, busloads full of school children would arrive at the exhibition venue to walk past, admire, and draw inspiration from her work and to enjoy and learn to respect the living environment. So much so that her work was acknowledged and admired by none other than the President of UAE, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Jyoti has also been honored by the NRI Welfare Society for her prolific work.
Artist's Perspective
I have a deep fascination for dense foliage and its changing colors in different seasons, which, to me, are symbolic of the eternal cycle of life. I have watched the joyous tenderness of new life in spring turning into strong and lush fullness of summer, uncaring and abundant in its glory, its gradual maturing into the rich colors of autumn, and its graceful softening into the greyness of winter, having lived life to the full, ultimately making way for the new. In doing so, nature seems to celebrate life in the simple acceptance of an ordered discipline of existence.
It is my sincere attempt to present the joy of the living environment as I observe and perceive it.
The recent pandemic made everyone painfully aware of the fragile nature of our ecosystem. It reminded us that Mother Nature has a lot of patience. She sends repeated warnings to humankind against misuse, abuse and overuse of Her resources before finally unleashing Her fury. The pandemic was a rude realization of how helpless we are against the power of Nature. At the same time Nature is benevolent and forgiving. She responds instantly to positive efforts of mankind to rectify mistakes.
The lockdown period opened quite another aspect of Nature to me. It was a time for introspection while being cooped up inside homes, a time when one could hear the silence outside, when the skies became blue again instead of polluted grey, when mountain ranges became visible on the horizon, when deer and peacocks ventured out to reclaim their space, when new varieties of birds arrived in flocks, when colorful butterflies reappeared, when squirrels scampered up to you to pick food from your palm. It was a time for resurgence and renewal for Nature. The lockdown was simultaneously a tragedy and an awakening, which I tried to portray in my own way in many of the paintings done during this time.