New Delhi is back with yet another artistic introspection as Meena Yadav houses her solo exhibition, “Astitva – The Essence of Being,” at the Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. The exhibition is running from December 3rd to December 7th, 2025, and is definitely more than a collection of paintings; it is an invitation to present a powerful exploration of identity, resilience, and the elemental, unspoken core of human existence.
Delving Into The Artistic Vision
Meena Yadav built her journey as an artist belonging to the niche of contemporary abstract expressionism. Her artworks stand firmly at the conjecture of emotions, environment, and existential brooding. The artist is based in Gurugram and is known for her intuitive visual language, a vocabulary that is fluid, textured, and mediates between stillness and emotional inertia. Critics who have followed her previous showcases, including her 2023 series Echoes of Silence and her participation in the Art Habitat Gurgaon Collective (2024), note her consistent preoccupation with elemental forces, memory, and inner contours. Astitva, thus, elevates this inquiry into a more distilled and introspective realm.
In her view, the abstractions are not a departure from reality, but a medium to bring people back to the foundational truths that underpin our complex lives. Her artistic practice is a result of her diligent observation of environments in constant flux. She observes the transforming sky, the land carrying invisible histories, and spaces trodden by silent memory. Meena’s canvases act as distillations of these phenomena, capturing their internal rhythm and meditative calm. She creates environments that are neither landscapes nor dreamscapes; her sense of environment is rooted in the context of emotional geographies, reverberating the energies of nature.
Four Windows into Existence: A Curatorial Journey
The exhibition is anchored by key works that serve as distinct emotional and conceptual stations on the journey to define ‘Astitva.’
| Exhibition | Details |
|---|---|
| Title | Astitva – The Essence of Being |
| Artist | Meena Yadav |
| Dates | December 3rd to December 7th, 2025 |
| Time | 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM |
| Venue | Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. |
| Key Artworks | The World in One Breath, A Meadow in Motion, The Sky Opens Elsewhere, A Realm in Rupture |
| Artistic Approach | Abstraction as introspection, returning to elemental truths rather than escaping reality |
| Essence of Astitva | Focuses on existential stillness, inner strength, and fluid identities |
| Artistic Language | Built through layered texture, colour gradients, intuitive marks, and atmospheric abstraction |
Exploring the Works
1. The World in One Breath
In this piece, the artist orchestrates a cinematic unfolding of colours, including ochres, earthy greens, and blues. Art critics drawing parallels to the atmospheric paintings of Rothko and contemporary Indian abstract expressionists note that the painting’s dissolving transitions create a suspended temporality. This artwork functions like a memory of seasons: cyclical, fluid, and quietly immense.
2. A Meadow in Motion
Here, upward strokes animate the composition, invoking the subtle dynamism of land meeting light. The work embodies her core strength: abstraction that conveys sensation rather than form. It mirrors her earlier works inspired by the shifting fields of rural Haryana, but with a more liberated, ascendant movement.
3. The Sky Opens Elsewhere
Rendered in lilacs, muted blues, and translucent veils, this painting opens into an imagined horizon where gravity loosens. Viewers and critics have compared this piece to her 2024 work Weight of a Whisper, citing its porousness and meditative expansiveness. The soft veils of colour behave like portals into alternative emotional states, an inward journey disguised as an outward sky.
4. A Realm in Rupture
In contrast to the quiet subtlety of the previous works, A Realm in Rupture introduces urgency. Tense textures, raw marks, and restless strokes evoke fracture and flight. It becomes a psychological terrain of struggle, survival, and transformation. Yet within its turbulence lies strength, a reminder that rupture, too, is a form of becoming.
Key Highlights of the Exhibition
- A deeply introspective exploration of existential identity.
- Works that balance stillness and motion, echoing natural rhythms.
- Complex layering techniques that create subtle depth and movement.
- A seamless blend of emotional landscapes and environmental cues.
- A thoughtful progression from calm to rupture, representing the many states of human existence.
- Exhibition situated in one of Delhi’s most prominent cultural spaces — the Visual Arts Gallery.
- Strong resonance with contemporary global abstraction while retaining a distinctly Indian intuitive sensibility.
Moving Beyond The Canvas
Her paintings do not merely narrate; they breathe. They compel the audience to step away from the external chaos and stand long enough to experience the vital movements captured within the art-space. The Visual Arts Gallery space, known for accommodating immersive experiences, provides the perfect backdrop for this series, allowing the layering and depth in her works to be fully appreciated. They echo the deep-dive required to grasp one’s inner strength, illustrating that the most profound realities are often the quietest.
Takeaway
Astitva is a visual philosophy in itself. Her art reveals the emotional truth through silent viewing. The contemporary world is punctuated with a complex spectacle; amidst this, Meena Yadav’s contemplative abstractions feel radical. She emphasizes that identity is not a declaration but a pulse, a rhythm, an ever-shifting constellation of experiences. Do not miss this opportunity to witness an artist defining the delicate yet resilient architecture of the self.
