Nature Morte is pleased to present a solo exhibition of Mona Rai for the time in the Mumbai gallery.

For over five decades, Mona Rai has challenged the meanings and motifs of what constitutes abstraction, creating works that express the intersections of sometimes untraceable feelings including confidence and humility. With markmaking and geometries as overlapping cues for a sustained practice that emerges from similarly aligned artists including Nasreen Mohamedi, Jogen Chowdhury and Zarina Hashmi. Rai’s works express a rawness within truth while also signifying the capacity to approach and absorb shifting landscapes of power in which systems confront, structures emerge and spaces disappear. She invites viewers to immerse themselves within and among each mark, each gateway, absorbing materiality, gesture, and rhythm.

Ashes and Diamonds is a gallery presentation that includes a selection of Rai’s recent works on canvas and paper, tracing the artist’s continued engagements with both media. Among the seven larger canvas works, one may probe layers of texture and colour that flow through and create visual passages of repeating patterns, a fluid dynamic of rhythm and pull. These confident gestures give way to quieter de-centered moments—of stillness and soft movements that rest gently on the surface. The glimmer of metallic tones and the shimmer of glitter enliven the canvas, catching light in unpredictable ways and leaving one suspended between the tactile and the ethereal. With her ten paper works, there is an accessible complexity that meets a coalescing and interaction of colour and structure.

Rai moves from intuition into repetition, guided by motifs that she draws from everyday life—quotidian landscapes, sounds and even objects from a bazaar. Deeply embedded within forms of knowledge making and production, these contexts, captivating territories, are not depicted literally but become eloquent translations of a personal visual language that has evolved over decades. Influenced by music, poetry, and the intellectual landscapes, Rai’s works are woven dreams, capturing moments of thought, memory, and emotional resonance. Her approach has always been self-contained and exploratory, guided as much by lived experience and philosophical inquiry, allowing each of her works to remain steadfastly meditative, yet vibrantly expressive.

About the Artist

Mona Rai (b.1947) received a Master’s in Psychology at Delhi University and studied art at Triveni Kala Sangam. Rai is an abstractionist who explores the expressive potential of different materials such as metallic leaves, fabrics, glitter, sand, gravel, dirt and ash in her paintings. Her process is rooted in risk-taking. Many of her works, both on canvas and paper, resemble battlegrounds: scorched, trampled, slit, wounded, scratched, scarred, bleeding and weeping to rend objects into emotional states and aesthetic consciousness. At other times, she creates shimmering fields of color that dazzle and oscillate in the light, with imagery informed by craft production and ritual art forms. Rai takes inspiration from her environment, responding to nature and its manifestations in the animal, vegetable and mineral realms; and science, language, and their proliferation through technological means.

In the course of her expansive career, Rai has participated in multiple national and international shows including Nature Morte, New Delhi (2021, 2017, 2014, 2010, 2004); Gallery Maya, London (2006); Gallery F.I.A., Amsterdam (1997, 1993); Gallery Espace, New Delhi (1992); Gallery Augustine, Hofheim (1991); Sakshi Gallery, Madras (1991); Gallery Aurobindo, New Delhi (1988); Triveni Gallery, New Delhi (1984, 1974); Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi (1980, 1978, 1977, 1976, 1975, 1974) and Gallery Chemould, Mumbai (1979). She has also shown at Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, (2001-2002); BK Kunstforum, Dusseldorf (2001-2002); Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, Cheltenham, UK (1995-1996); National Gallery of Modern Art (1986) and Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan (1984). Her work was featured in the 9th Norwegian International Print Triennial, Norway (1989); the Bharat Bhawan Biennial, India (1988); the 17th International Biennial of Graphic Art, Yugoslavia (1987) and the 15th Tokyo Biennale, Japan (1984).