The view through a porthole has been a liberating experience for artist Sheila Malhotra.
- by Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni
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My painting have been inspired by the long life which I have spent at sea,” says Sheila Malhotra, whose exhibition, Thruogh the Porthole, is currently on showat the Taj Art Gallery.

Malhotra has traveled the world, thanks to her husband’s job in a shipping concern. “I have been to the US, the West Coast, Europe, including Italy and the Mediterranean, Mombasa in Africa, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, England and Canada,” she says. “The views seen through a ship’s porthole have been projected in all their variety in my works.”

Malhotra received her early education from Shimla and graduated from Punjab University. She has a curous lineage, in that her grandfather Samuel (Satyanand) Stokes was an American. He migrated to India from the US to settle in Shimla.

“I received my formal education in fine arts from the Government School of Arts in Candigrah,” says Malhotra. “Here I got a scholarship in the subject. I also took part in group shows held at the School Art Museum in Chandigargh.”

Malhotra has chosen a challenging theme, which is quite unusual in its implication.

The violent sea and the merchant ships bobbing in it with their awe – inspiring structures and the various parts of a ship from board to belly have impinged on her pictorial imagination.

“I have seen fantastic views through the porthole,” she says, “the Milky Way, the sunset skies, the flying birds and fish, not to speak of the side of the ship used for loading cargo. The face of the sea itself undergoes many changes.”

In one very distinctive canvas Malhotra shows a broken glass pane on the face of a typical porthole. In another she uses newspaper strips to conjure up an image of a sinking ship. Here is, in essence, a typical sailor’s would vibrating with drama.

“For me, the porthole provides a rather profound allegory,” says the artist. “It is the view of the vast world through something as utilitarian as a porthole. The view is liberating and suggests the flight of the soul itself.”

Malhotra has been painting for many years and has participated in major group shows the 55th Annual All India Fine Arts show held at the Academy of Fine Arts in Calcutta in 1990; the open-air exhibition held at the Birla Academy of Art and Culture in Calcutta in 1992-93; the group show held at the Academy of Fine Arts in Calcutta, last year; the group show organized by Jharokha Art Gallery in New Delhi’s Hauz Khas village last year; a sloe exhibition held at Conclave Gallery in Calcutta, another in the Katayun Gallery in Calcutta and at Calcutta’s Grindlays Bank in the past three years.

“I have always been humble enough to expose myself to trends in the world of art during my trends”, she confesses. “I learnt a lot from my visits to the Nationial Gallery in London”.

“I can never forget the profound impact that rembrandt’s Night Watch in the Amsterdam Museum had on me.”

Malhotra confesses that her artistic sensibilities have been sharpened by her vast experiences, and that she would never have done her present series without the enriching impact of sea life.

“The point is to explore the drama within yourself after reacting to the trubulent sea waves, to sights of giant ship structures, of birds and skies,” says Malhotra.

And she has amalgamated the two worlds successfully on cavas.

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