Nishant Badami

Every painting begins as a gesture. Everything else is a conversation with that first mark.
I don't begin with an image.
I begin with a feeling, a movement, a question, or sometimes simply a gesture that refuses to leave me. My paintings are not attempts to represent the world as it appears, but to explore how it is experienced. I am interested in rhythm, energy, memory, silence and the traces they leave behind.
Much of my work is built through movement. The broad, almost calligraphic marks that have become central to my practice emerge through an intuitive process of layering, erasure and rediscovery. I work not only with paintbrushes, but with brooms, improvised tools and my hands, allowing each mark to retain the physical memory of its making. These sweeping gestures are often balanced by quieter passages of shading, texture and subtle transitions, creating a dialogue between force and stillness.
Although the paintings occasionally evoke water, forests, landscapes or organic forms, I rarely set out to paint any of them. They appear because they exist somewhere in my own experiences and observations. What interests me is not representation, but resonance; creating work that is open enough for each viewer to discover their own mea...