“That was the day I realised my calling for textiles.Dhir’s tryst with textiles began as a student at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, when she happened to visit a small village called Paithan in Maharashtra, which is famous for its Paithani sarees, as part of her course curriculum. “A textile artist is not confined to only a type of fabric, rather textile art encompasses any fabric, technique or a combination of techniques to realise a surface which can be a piece of art also,” elucidates Dhir. Hand-woven fabric from various weaving clusters is procured and then the design is actualised on the surface of the white fabric.”Textile art is an unending canvas. Presented by Gallery Art Motif, New Delhi, the exhibition, which will go on till December 17, showcases imaginative works of Dhir in various patterns. Her work also reflects the sacred traditional techniques like Bandhej from India, and Adire from Nigeria. One needs to be careful while choosing thread count, and the right colours that will interact and blend with each other. Dhir has been using synthetic dye but she also plans to explore natural dye soon. My last two solo shows depicted my inner feelings.

And Dhir’s works — the unpredictable results that resist dyeing present — are congruent with this philosophy.I relate to fabric more than any other material as my education revolved around textiles.I feel textile and their techniques give wider scope of exploration than a canvas.People usually connect with paintings, wall panels and sculptures, but it gets slightly difficult for textile artists as the concept is still picking up in India.Textile art in India is still picking up, and a China polyester Tent Fabric lot of the time it’s compared to traditional textile crafts because India’s textile traditions are age-old and are created with great finesse.Priced from Rs 90,000 onwards, the works have geometric patterns. Currently, she’s working on some new techniques within the arena of resist dyeing. It gives an artist the freedom to choose from a wide range of fabrics — silk, cotton, raw silk, chiffon, polyester, linen etc.“I am happy that textile art has been encouraged.

I feel textile fades/warps with time, same as our lives,” says Dhir.“My work is changing, I feel it’s becoming more responsive to the environment and experiences around me. Dhir’s design philosophy has been influenced by the Japanese aesthetic Wabi- Sabi, centred on the acceptance of transience and imperfection.Inspired by a Japanese manual resist dyeing technique on fabric, called Shibori, the artworks require intricate stitching, multiple levels of dyeing and discharging and finally unstitching. Indigo perfectly blends with mustard to form a unit. In this process, I suddenly discovered my latent talent of being able to interact with craftsmen so effortlessly without even knowing their language.The laborious process of resist dyeing involves multiple stages. So what’s the future of textile art? Dhir explains, “I looked at textile just as a medium for self-expression. Circles and semi-circles aligned and used with various permutations and combinations of colours and patterns lend an ethereal quality to the works.

The fabric is layered and folded in a distinctive fashion and what follow are diverse stages of dyeing and resisting on the pre-conceptualised stitched patterns..Textile artist Neha Puri Dhir infuses creativity, originality and design application in her exhibition titled “The Art of Shibori”.The diligence and dedication of the weavers left a lasting impression on Dhir.The good response to the exhibition is an appreciation of Dhir’s art practice of around four years. I can call it an ‘aha’ moment in the true sense as there was no doubt left in my mind thereafter that it has to be fiber/textiles that I would want to explore for the rest of my life,” says Dhir excitedly. But now my ongoing work is a response to environmental changes, pollution, water issues etc,” she quips. Another piece of work uses black and brown in circles as if to depict the waning and waxing of the moon. Saree weaving is an extremely laborious process, to the extent that it takes days just to set the loom for weaving.