Experiments with reality

Shivani Dugar, a New York-based Indian artist, is holding her solo show in Beijing. [Photo provided to China Daily]

"I met Shivani in New York last winter and I was immediately drawn by the emotions and thinking of her works," says the gallery's founder, Xu Peili, widely known as Mianbu among collectors and artists, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Being 3 Gallery.

"When we comprehend the shortness of time and the mortality of human life, we begin to appreciate art's attempt to make our life's experiences endure through the ages," Mianbu says. "By recounting ever-changing moments with her brush, Shivani transfers her inner experience to the canvas, block by block, providing an avenue for life to perfect itself."

Dugar says she draws the colorful landscapes mostly from her memories, with a blend of imagination and emotion. She pays special attention to the light. Evening Lights depicts the swift change of the evening clouds－the emanation of the most gorgeous light as darkness falls. In the Snow is the moment when snow melts, depicting the thrill and surprise of ice-breaking in a vast landscape of cold. After the Light shows the calm and still moments after a blaze of fire.

She already sold two of her paintings－This Time and In the Snow－to an unidentified Chinese collector.

Mianbu says this is a "very successful" case, given that most buyers she knows shows little interest in new foreign artists.