On the other hand the visual language of Indian art is also representative of the multivocality of the land itself. Sculptural and painterly Indian art has always been thought to be centering around the human figure where form and body plays an extremely significant role.

As in most traditional cultures, visual symbols become powerful means of relaying religious and social ideals. Each piece of art in addition to being an object of beauty carries its own historical and spiritual significance. Stupas and temples employed a profound symbolic language based on visual representations of all major philosophical concepts. These included the Chakra the wheel of time used to symbolize movement; the Padma the lotus, the prime symbol of creation; Swastika representing the fourfold aspects of creation and motion; the Kalpalata and Kalpavriksha the wish-fulfilling creeper, tree representing immortality and Linga and Yoni male and female fertility symbols. Among-the many analyzed spiritual symbols are simple symbols like sun, wheel, lotus; complex symbols like maya(veil-illusion); and iconic symbols like those related to Hindu or Buddhist Gods. Later rules evolved to provide additional symbolic content through mudras or hand gestures of sculptured deities

While in India the sacred and the profane have always co existed side by side, it is this very duality in mind and thought which has always dogged the Indian Art Practice. What gave birth to India's artistic tradition remains a complex question for most western analysts. Unlike the classical Greek human form that was based on the flawless, perfect human; Indian sculptural panels appeared to be arbitrary collections of strange juxtapositions of primitive beliefs and superstitions. This is not to say that Indian spirituality was always free from superstitions or arbitrary constructs, but in the best of the sculptural panels, there was always a conscious attempt to convey powerful philosophical ideas. This unique spiritual vein in Indian art has continued unsnapped throughout history and has also found a contemporary voice.

The flip side of the Indian spiritual and religious journey has been the subaltern voice of the folk and tribal, and it is in these spaces that abstraction of form finds its strong visual representation. The murals of warli, the bhitichitra of Madhya Pradesh, their depiction of nature, environment, their folk themes have always had a strong leaning to abstraction.

While at one level the artist has worked as an illustrator to religious texts in manuscripts in wall paintings, basically producing icons for worship, at another level form and the formless or the nirguna1 aspect of bhakti has always been vested in the abstract language.

In contemporary India Abstraction is being re visited with the contemporary artist developing his/her own language of expression. Materials are being constantly added to the abstract vocabulary, enhancing it enriching it and taking it to a more personal level.

This exhibition is an attempt to explore the multiple domains of abstract art, either thematically or materially, taking the figurative into the realm of the abstract and engaging with the viewer at a more personal more auto biographical level.

This transition of Indian art from the traditional to the modern has been an adventurous journey. From the spiritual to the experiential, the underpinnings of abstract thoughts whether in the shunya, bindu or the triangle, geometry has always been the hand maiden of the artist.