Mango Luxe is delighted to be representing India based artist, Mini Arora in her new affordable art collection.
Mini Arora is an artist, inspired by Western abstraction and Eastern philosophies. Her work is a visual exploration of the journey she has taken in life. She moved to India in her 30s after having spent her early married life in the US, and her childhood in England. It was in the US in the late ‘80s that she first started to paint by enrolling in a watercolour class. From then on, she largely taught herself different art techniques, which continued with her move to India in the early '90s.
Her desire to learn about art history in depth, led her to enroll in an art course by correspondence, from England. She was drawn to the artists, Kurt Schwitters and Robert Rauschenberg, and in particular their use of discarded items, which falls under the genre of Objets Trouvés. Some years later, in 2017, she finished this course and graduated with a BA in Creative Arts, from the University of Creative Arts in London.
Since then she has moved on from art school teachings, and has realised the importance of her life’s journey in what she creates. The study of the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads, a collection of ancient Indian spiritual texts that offer insights into the nature of reality and the soul, gave her, she says, “the taste of spirituality that I have been looking for all my life. With that and with my daily meditation practice, I have been able to find the interconnectedness between us, as people, and with the natural world.”
This same philosophy of interconnectedness that is emphasised in the Upanishads is reflected in her work. Arora often incorporates found objects and memorabilia into her mixed media works. These objects can be anything from old photographs to ticket stubs to pieces of jewellery. Arora believes that these objects can be used to create a sense of nostalgia and memory and in turn, may resonate with the viewer.
In her textiles she reuses old clothes, scraps of fabric, threads, beads and sequins from her sewing stash. “I was about 7 when I learned how to knit and I remember an aunt wanted to teach me, so my mother gave me her old knitted sari blouse to unravel so that I could use the yarn from that. We were recycling even then but we never called it that.” Arora often layers the textiles and found objects to create a sense of depth and texture, mindful that nothing can be bought, and so the art is created with limited supplies. She realises that this sense of improvising, managing with limited means, and reducing waste was ingrained in her at a very young age and after moving to India, she understood that it was very much a part of Indian culture and ethics.
The artist believes in making art by reusing what we have and by lessening the resources that we extract from the earth. She is continuously experimenting to see how she can implement this further.
Arora's art is her unique personal journey. Her commitment to create meaningful and sustainable art is a wonderful example of how art can be a powerful tool for promoting environmental awareness. Her artworks are a reminder that we are all connected to each other and to nature, and that we all have a responsibility to protect our planet.
Mini Arora’s art is in private collections worldwide. She has exhibited her work in galleries and museums in the US, the UK and India. Her affordable paintings can now be found at our website www.mangoluxe.com and Etsy at https://www.etsy.com/shop/MangoLuxeandCo?ref=shop_sugg_market&page=1#ite