#InConversation with Shipra Gupta

When I look back, I realise that I was drawn to art and its visual expression from a very early age. As a child, I enjoyed my art classes and felt naturally attracted to colours. I often used colourful pens even while writing texts in my notebooks. Alongside this, I also had a strong interest in subjects like geometry and physics. 

I started working as an art teacher after completion of my degree. I continued my practice consistently and never lost touch with paintings. I used to teach during the day and paint at home in evenings. I have always been drawn to the fleeting light and natural forms around me. Even while travelling, I would observe trees, urban landscapes, and the changing colours of nature at different places. 

The Pandemic brought a new phase in my life. I adapted to the situation by teaching art online and it soon became a meaningful experience, and I was able to connect with more than 200 students through virtual platforms. With things slowly returning to normal, I felt the need to grow further as an artist, so I decided to pursue Master's from Amity University. It was a new beginning for me. The falculty's mentorship helped me deepen my understanding of art and expand my practice. During this time, my landscape work gradually transformed into abstraction. I became more expressive, and this shift continues in my work even today. 

While working on my dissertation and studying color theory in depth, I encountered an idea that completely shifted my understanding—colours, as we perceive it, don't exist in nature, it’s just a construct of the mind. It is through the activity of rods and cones cells, and the interpretation of the brain, that color comes into being. This realization unsettled everything that I had previously believed about color. That beauty, like color, lives in the eyes of the beholder. What we see is not absolute, but an illusion shaped by the mind. This thought became a central philosophy in my practice. I have constantly witnessed thecycles of construction, destruction, and recreation within the urban landscape. These transformations echo the same idea of impermanence and shifting realities. This understanding naturally entered my work, strengthening my engagement with abstraction. The illusion of color, combined with the transient nature of the world around me, has deepened my approach to painting. It has given me a sense of freedom and confidence in composition. If nothing is fixed or permanent, then creation becomes an open field—an act of the mind, fluid and limitless. This belief continues to energize my practice and shapes the way I construct my visual language.

With this shift in perception, I now feel a sense of freedom in my practice. All the shapes, forms, and visual elements that I have explored over the past twenty years come together naturally in my work. I bring them into my abstractions in a playful and intuitive way, without restriction. 

Today, I embrace change as an integral part of both life and practice. I have learnt that every experience—whether planned or unexpected—has enriched me. Now that I am working full-time in painting again, I can clearly feel how these diverse experiences come together within my work. My time in publishing sharpened my understanding of color, composition, and audience sensitivity. Teaching, in educational institutes and on virtual platforms, introduced me to new technologies and refined my ability to communicate. Storyboarding strengthened my sense of structure, sequencing, and detailed planning. And homemaking, in its quiet and intimate way, taught me the value of presence, care, and emotional honesty in the act of creation. All these layers have collectively transformed my artistic language. What once felt like a detour now reveals itself as a foundation. Looking back, the longing I felt for painting has transformed into a deeper connection with it.

In my ongoing series Cartography of Mind, I have allowed myself to become more open, intuitive, and playful on the canvas. This body of work brings together many of my smaller, earlier practices—whether in watercolor, pencil color, line work, or geometric explorations. I began by compiling these fragments, almost like a personal archive, and reworking them into new compositions. Through this process, I started to rethink my approach to color, structure, and space. The lines I had previously explored began to take on new meaning, and I became more aware of how geometric lines can construct space and introduce multiple dimensions within a painting. The process itself unfolds in layers. In the initial stages, I work with a sense of freedom—using colors and textures in a dynamic and expressive way. This phase is intuitive and fluid, allowing the surface to evolve organically. As the work progresses, I gradually move towards a more constructive approach. In the middle layers, grids begin to emerge. Grids have always felt very personal to me—they offer a framework, a ground upon which something can be built, measured, or even disrupted. In the final layers, I attempt to bring everything together—my explorations of grids, geometric structures, and expressive marks—so that the painting begins to feel alive, balanced, and cohesive. It becomes a space where intuition and construction coexist. This process is deeply engaging for me. It guides me in understanding how to combine and transform different visual languages into something vibrant and dynamic. On an emotional and psychological level, it also reflects my relationship with change. While I embrace transformation, I also feel a strong desire to carry forward all that I have practiced and experienced—together, compile, and rearticulate it within my work. In many ways, Cartography of Mind becomes not just a visual journey, but a way of mapping my own internal landscape—where past and present continuously intersect and evolve.