The surfaces of Ramesh Thorat's paintings are meticulously constructed of innumerable fine marks, accumulating into expansive fields, auras, and halos. The layering and build up of these repeated marks create a deep and immersive drawing surface, whose radiant bands and shapes are suggestive not only of light and its absence, but also of spatial depth and the emanation of sound, breath, and vapor. The abundant, repetitive marks also recall writing and script in addition to notions of a chant or a mantra. In his fourteenth solo exhibition, the Pune based artist presents an exceptional body of work completed over the last two years. The meticulously prepared black or white grounds impart a sensation of depth with extraordinary mastery, labor, and devotion to exploring the essence of our existence. Thorat carefully marks these surfaces with brush, cloth or roller and in a few pieces, even with coconut coil. Thorat’s canvases can neither be described as paintings nor defined as drawings. It is as if he has divested the canvas of all its painterly associations and returned it to its natural state as cloth from which an image, neither depicted nor delineated, imperceptibly emerges. The shimmering surface entices the spectator towards a veil traced in a concentrated, viscous suspension of rich pigment that dries to a uniformly flat finish with a barely perceptible incidence of randomly distributed pores. Thorat typically immerses himself in one of the larger canvases for several weeks, executing the brush in a slow dance around the canvas, which is laid on the floor, or by bending into it as if in prayer. These are not fashionable gestures toward shamanism, but part of a practical process that has evolved naturally over the years. In his earlier work the marks with which he created patterns on the canvas were composed of minute sacred symbols, repeated like a mantra. In the more recent works, symbols and forms are dissolved and light is released.