- by James Brewer
____________________________________
As the Noughties clatter or clutter to a close, we must not forget that we thought ourselves privileged to witness the start of what was billed to be a marvellous, mighty millennium. London artist Sheila Malhotra began examining that phenomenon well ahead of time, and continues to regard it as symbolic of deep change.
Sheila grew up in the north Indian resort of Shimla, living 7,500 ft above sea level amid the pinewood forests of the Himalayas.
“As a youngster” she recalls, “I wondered whether I would live to see the next century-what a wonderful experience it would be. It seemed ages away then. By the 90s, it dawned on me that it was not only a new century but a new millennium that I might witness. To me this was very exciting.”
Artistically speaking, Sheila is returning to India after 11 years for a solo exhibition at the prestigious Jehangir Art Gallery, from December 29 .2009 to January 4 2010. The Jehangir is Mumbai’s main art gallery, close by the Prince of Wales Museum and a sought-after venue for Indian and other artists.
Her childhood in the hills inspired her to become the only artist in a family of seven children and a large extended family. She is the granddaughter of the American savant Samuel (Satyanand) Stokes who adopted India as his homeland, pioneering apple cultivation which proved a boon to the then very poor state of Himachal Pradesh, and serving jail sentences in his fight against the bonded labour system during the British Raj. Marrying a sea-going officer in the Shipping Corporation of India, Sheila accompanied him on his voyages and began a series of oil and collage paintings entitled The World Through a Port Hole.
From the entrails of the porthole theme, her new series broke free as a separate identity under the title of Playing with the Millennia. It views the world at the dawn of one millennium and the dusk of another.

Sheila has already taken this into a major exhibition in 1998, showing The Last Solar Eclipse of the 20th Century, the First Solar Eclipse of the 21st Century and the Recurrence of Eclipses through Centuries.
Joining the crowds snuggling together against the bitter cold as Big Ben struck and clocks showed 00:00 as centuries and millennia changed hands, she found her enthusiasm for this fleeting moment ignited by London’s myriad colours and sounds.”I couldn’t let such a big world event go. I couldn’t let it pass off as past history. I wanted to cling onto it and preserve it forever. On January 1, 2000, every newspaper carried features, photographs, articles bursting with news of this great world event
“Not a living soul would encounter it again, unless he got his body preserved for a thousand years to see the fourth millennium,” she told us. “But man’s memory is short-lived. He seems to have forgotten an event so important. I am determined not to let that happen.”
A decade on from the thrill of the rising millennium, when it is already a forgotten past, Sheila aims to keep alive the idea of heralding the 21st century and of the convergence of, or the setting apart of the two centuries,
(Her oil, acrylic and gouache paintings are overlaid on turn of the century editions of UK newspapers, allowing the works to encompass time in motion. Her paintings have surreally blend reality with imagination. In the age of recycling, Sheila has sought to conserve time itself on her canvases.

________________________________________________________________