In his latest series, ‘Reduction’, artist Rahul Inamdar explores the colours as they intermingle with textures of imagination and memory

“Wordless thought turns into colour masses that propel the viewer onto a sensorial imaginative journey,” reads the curatorial note. Artist Rahul Inamdar is an alchemist of formless colour gradients who does not tidily fit into any genres. 

His ongoing series ‘Reduction’ brings a heightened perception and imperceptibly resonates in individual ways with textures of imagination and memory. The title refers to the concerns that have propelled Inamdar’s work over the past many years – how to remove traces of his influence and control on his work.

This series, which was mostly made during the pandemic, uses Inamdar’s original additive and subtractive techniques and processes that are a signifier of postminimalism. 

Inamdar leads the way in the use of translucent colour washes with pigments that he has carefully mixed into his own aesthetic palette which liquify shapes into imperceptible gradients. One of the discoveries on this journey was to switch to the use of the unprimed side of the cotton canvas. He surrenders to this unprimed surface of canvas as he interacts as a catalyst with the liquid colour.

After 10 years of work experience in innovation and brand management in firms like Marico and Godrej, with an MBA and engineering degree, Inamdar is a crossover artist. He gave up his lucrative career as a corporate consultant and moved to the canvas in 2007.

Epitomising the concept of slowing time, Inamdar takes the opportunity for a contemplative relation with the natural world in a purely sensorial way that involves perception, memory and cyclical natural change with a deceleration of the pace of modern technological life. 

He invites his audience to slowly absorb and internalize the paintings in order to really engage with the worlds of pure space that he unfolds. 

His endeavour to relinquish control and reduce his presence in the paintings requires an emptying of mind and forgetting of predetermined desires that borders on a meditative state which he says is the starting point of his work. He continues to explore the distilling of form to its essence of space, mass and colour into a minimalist expressive truth. 

The exhibition is on display at Threshold Art Gallery till September 2