We live in an age that rewards immediacy. Groceries arrive in minutes, payments take seconds, and every swipe guarantees new information. The brain, hence, often ends up that very pace, leaving little room to pause with a single thought. Couturier Harpreet Narula’s first solo exhibition, Inward, which opened at Art Explore, New Delhi on August 3, pushes against that very current.
An acclaimed designer, known as one-half of Rimple and Harpreet, the duo behind the opulent costumes of films such as Heeramandi and Padmaavat, Narula has now turned to abstract art. While his paintings retain the intricate grandeur that has long defined his couture, they also reveal something his garments seldom could: the artist himself.
“When you're designing, you're creating something for a purpose. You have to think about the weather, the person's body type, the occasion, and how the wearer wants to express themselves. All those considerations take away a certain freedom,” he says. “Art doesn't come with that accountability. It is purely your own expression.”
Having worked in textiles for over 25 years, its influence on his art is hard to miss. Repetition is a common thread in all his artworks on display, which he has picked up from his works as a designer.
“When you work with textiles, you witness repetition. You see artisans weaving, tying knots, embroidering, performing the same gesture over and over again,” he says. “You may notice small square forms in my work that resemble bandhani, but they actually emerge from my experience with textiles. It always felt very meditative to me, almost like someone chanting while moving beads on a rosary.”
The same quality – repetition – he also sees in phulkari, in many Navajo and Northeastern textiles, African textiles, Japanese ink paintings. “It’s never mechanical, but organic. Somewhere I feel those repetitive forms carry emotion, and I wanted that emotion to come into my paintings.”
Along with textiles, he also took inspiration from walls, frescoes, and old places he visited as a child. “I could simply sit and stare at old walls while everyone else made fun of me. They wondered what I found so fascinating,” he says. Memory, hence, has influenced his art deeply.
Creation for him, meanwhile, doesn’t come with a set template.
“I begin with a blank canvas and simply start working. After two or three hours, I step back, look at it, respond to what I see, and continue. It's an ongoing conversation -- between me and the canvas. I keep working spontaneously until I feel the painting has reached a state of balance. That's when I stop,” Narula says.
But how does a designer balance his time as an artist, donning two hats at once? To this, Narula says, he loves returning to his studio and painting every day. “Going to the studio and being by myself is probably my strongest connection with myself. I also struggle a little with sleep, so if I can't sleep, I'd rather paint. It gives me that time and space.”
Aptly named Inward, Narula’s art is about connection with himself. It somewhat has the same effect on the visitors. His abstract works invite you to stop looking for instant meaning and simply stay.
Inward is an ongoing exhibition at Art Explore, New Delhi, until August 21.
