Hufreesh Dumasia

Hufreesh Dumasia is an abstract painter, who has been living in Auroville since last 12 years. Her process of creation is really interesting and different from other artists, because her paintings are the spontaneous expressions of her inner being. Let’s discover this great artist.

Hufreesh, who is originally from Mumbai, has grown up in Pondicherry. She completed her studies in Sri Aurobindo InternationalSchool of Education, where she was initiated to the divine research through the teaching of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Indeed the Ashram school gives a complete education, where the mind, body and the Divine part within you are given equal importance. The physical side, with two hours of sport every day,  the spiritual side, with the seeking of the Divine within each individual, and of course, the intellectual side  is developed with the studies of different subjects. As the ashram school has international students from all over India and the world, Hufreesh has developed in a very open-minded way, symbolized by her impressive facility to speak a lot of languages, indeed she can speak fluently 12 languages and continues to learn more as she travels around. As she says, “learn a new language and get a new soul”.

Hufreesh is basically a self-taught artist. Though when she was at the ashram school, she studied under a great artist for six years.  When she left the Ashram School, she kept on learning new techniques, styles on her own. Initially she worked as a tee-shirt artist and a graphic designer.

But after a couple of years, she decided to move to Auroville. After her “different” education, she was wondering what she should do with her life, if she should just raise a family, have a good career and  follow the usual way of living.  Auroville represented a higher goal, which attracted her.  The concept of Auroville is to realize Human Unity. An international township, in Tamil Nadu, where men and women of all countries aspire to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. But behind this beautiful theory, life in general is not easy as it is a very challenging place. But step by step, through all the hardships and struggles, Hufreesh integrated in the daily life of Auroville and managed to find herself and her home. Finally she could focus on her paintings and her creative side, giving out the very best she had to offer through her Art.

Thanks to the atmosphere of Auroville, Hufreesh has been able to develop a very particular kind of creative process. Indeed she doesn’t think about what she will paint, but once she has started her painting, she just let’s it happen, it is not a mental process.  She doesn’t think about what she is doing; she paints spontaneously, choosing the colors and the forms according to her feelings at the moment. By this unusual  process, she is sometimes very surprised by her own paintings.

With this inimitable style of paintings, Hufreesh has met great success among the artistic sphere. She is invited to exhibit in different countries and recently she participated in Florence Biennale 2009.  She has also exhibited her paintings in Singapore, in the United Kingdom, in Japan and in many cities around India.

Her personal projects are now to create an artist movement in Auroville, by trying to unite artists of Auroville and create further of awareness of Art and its true role in the community life. So we will keep a look out for her projects in the coming months, and will keep you informed about  her exhibitions.

If you are interested in her paintings, and want to know her more in depth, the team of www.toutpondi.com invites you to visit her website: www.hufreesh.com , which is a great source of information about Hufreesh and her work.

By Guillaume LAISSE for www.toutpondi.com