Hemraj - eternal reminiscence 2.0

Hemraj is one of the leading abstractionists of his generation and someone who has been
closely associated with the gallery. He won the first ever Ravi Jain Annual Award in 1992
in a field where GR Iranna, Sonia Khurana and the likes were als o participating. The jury
comprised of Bimal Das Gupta, Prayag Shukla, KS Kulkarni, Kesha v Malik, Balbir Singh Katt
which is a big testimony to his talent. He has shown extensivel y in India and internationally
including Munich, Seoul, Korea and Japan, this has been a great achievement as an artist
for him.
His works are in sharp contrast with his general temperament. As a person he seems the most
calm, almost in a state of meditation, whereas his works show immense power and energy,
almost raw energy. His technique involves elements of traditional art forms like the miniature
painting while combining bold and thick strokes of paint, thick impasto which gives layers to
his work. According to him his artistic journey has been of learning and unlearning. He says for
constant growth as an artist it’s important to unlearn what you’ve learnt in school or college as
basics and keep striving to add new elements and new basics to ones art. Abstraction to him is
not without form. But he also says the work creates itself. Unl ike an artist working with figures
most of his works would not start with a theme in mind, it creates itself and in that state the
artistic genius in him creates these compositions which are most endearing. His colour palette
is quite varied and he is equally impactful while using bright colours like reds, blues, yellows
as well as subtle colours like greys and browns. His works have recently started featuring in
contemporary auctions and have done rather well.