Posted on 27 February 2026:
Beyond Light & Shadow: Gita Hudson and Thejomaye Menon Illuminate Chennai’s Art Scene
At the Lalit Kala Akademi, Chennai, two renowned voices in contemporary Indian art—Gita Hudson and Thejomaye Menon—come together in a compelling dialogue of form, texture and emotion. Their joint exhibition, Beyond Light & Shadow, running from March 6 to 12, 2026, invites viewers into a world where abstraction becomes language, and colour and silence converge in profound resonance.
Gita Hudson’s canvases, marked by her signature interplay of red and black, embody themes of memory, resistance, and transformation. Her works absorb and reflect, creating spaces where grief and resilience coexist, ultimately offering strength and continuity. Thejomaye Menon, in contrast, explores the thresholds of existence through a restrained monochrome palette, punctuated by subtle intrusions of colour. Her series evokes the delicate balance between presence and absence, light and darkness, guiding the viewer into moments of revelation.
Together, their works form a symphony of contrasts—Gita Hudson’s fiery vitality meeting Thejomaye Menon’s quiet meditations—yet both united in their exploration of survival, resilience and the human condition.
Gita Hudson: Red and Black Dialogues in Contemporary Abstraction
Gita Hudson, acclaimed artist, curator, and filmmaker, has been a vital presence in the Indian art world since the early 1990s. With more than twenty solo exhibitions and numerous group shows across India and abroad—including London, South Africa, Washington DC, and South Korea—her practice bridges disciplines and geographies. As an independent curator, she has collaborated with institutions such as The Raza Foundation, The INKO Centre, and DakshinaChitra Museum, while her films have documented over twenty-five contemporary artists, preserving the legacy of the Madras Art Movement and beyond.
Her latest series of abstract paintings emerges from a profound dialogue between her long-standing red palette and the depth of black. Red, for Hudson, symbolizes blood, land, fire, memory and resistance, while black becomes a living space—absorbing, reflecting and transforming. Earth tones surface like traces of soil and time, grounding the compositions in lived experience. Through layered textures and controlled disruptions, her canvases explore the tension between darkness and vitality, silence and memory. Ultimately, these works transcend despair, offering instead a language of survival, resilience, and transformation—finding strength and continuity within the dark.
Thejomaye Menon: From Light to Shadow in Contemporary Abstraction
Thejomaye Menon, Chennai-based visual artist and art educator, has spent over three decades shaping the language of contemporary Indian art. Rooted in her Kerala heritage, her practice has long explored the intricacies of human relationships, gradually evolving into pure abstraction. Her works invite viewers to engage with texture, space, and the raw essence of art itself, moving beyond representation into a deeper dialogue with form and canvas. Widely exhibited in India and abroad, she has held a solo show at Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, and received the International Award for Contemporary Painting in France in 2006.
In her latest series, From Light to Shadow, Menon explores the duality of existence through a restrained monochrome palette. Black and white dominate, stripping away distraction to reveal essence, while fleeting touches of colour—whispers of warmth or jolts of tension—disrupt the balance. These subtle intrusions guide the eye through thresholds of presence and absence, evoking the contrasts and revelations that define human experience. Her canvases become meditations on resilience and transformation, where light and shadow are not opposites but companions in the journey of being.
Beyond Light & Shadow is not merely an exhibition; it is an immersive journey into the depths of contemporary abstraction, a testament to the power of art to illuminate the unseen and transform silence into meaning.
