Moments Unnoticed 4, gesso, acrylic paint, ink, stencil, rubber stamps and acrylic gel on paper

Mandira Bhaduri was born in Kolkata, India, and recently moved back to her hometown after spending just over a decade in the United States. Mandira’s artworks often utilize acrylic media with block prints and stamp techniques creating a unique aesthetic that exists somewhere between painting and collage.

Patina of Love 1, acrylic paint, wrapping papers, decorative paper flowers, rubber stamps, ink and brush pens on printmaking paper

I enjoy the way Mandira employs layering techniques in her artworks. Each work seems to start with a thin wash of acrylic media, sometimes paint, gesso or both. The thin layer of paint allows the texture of the paper to shine through, differentiating these works from heavy paintings on canvas. The base of each painting is often composed with one or two cohesive colors, or occasionally a monochromatic plane of textured neutral tones.

Mandira's online portfolio space

Separating the works from pure abstraction are small collaged elements – stamped patterns and images, bits of found paper and cut outs – that are scattered irregularly across the surface of the paper. Though each work offers a wild array of imagery, the viewer is able to parse connections between all the images, following paths across the whole of the work. 

Flights do Return 10, markers, brush pens, red tag and decorative tape on adult colouring book paper