Gallery Art-Motif also moved home recently to Lado Sarai, described as Delhi’s SoHo by the city’s arterati. There are currently five art galleries here; three of them even share the same number. This rather elegant and unfussy gallery is large but not intimidating. It exudes warmth, especially with its wooden floors and white wooden Venetian blinds. A delicious counterpoint to its air of understatement are the metal doors and windows. Divided into several rooms, each one leading into another, the gallery covers 2000 square feet.

Mala Aneja, Gallery Art-Motif’s owner and director, appears to be in complete harmony with her new space: she is soft-spoken and has an air of serenity about her. Aneja is also very clear about what kind of art she wants to show. “I feel a gallery needs to be identifiable in some way vis-à-vis what it shows. The focus here is on non-figurative work. It is a personal preference, therefore easy to endorse. We show work by senior as well as younger painters. Prominent among the former are Ganesh Haloi, V.S. Gaitonde, Rajendra Dhawan, Prabhakar Kolte - and John Tun Sein, Kishor Shinde, Yogendra Tripathi, Vishakha Apte to name a couple of the younger painters. The works are only sourced from the artists.”

Gallery Art-Motif also prides itself in discovering bright young talents and nurtures them. In addition to the solo shows, the gallery holds a large group show during the year, which is now an annual feature. The group show is worked around a theme. It could be, as Aneja explains, “a medium (gouache, watercolour), genre (landscapes, abstract) or any other category (young contemporary artists).”

Lado Sarai happened quite happily for Aneja. As she puts it: “When we first visited the site, there were some metal hooks in the wall. The landlord explained to us that cattle used to be tethered here! Cattle shed to art gallery – organic to esoteric? The place had a nice feel to it – despite its condition – and the spaces flowed into each other smoothly. We broke a few walls to connect smaller areas, closed a few windows and the rest was all finishes and sprucing up. I wanted the place to have a light, calm and restful feel to it. I enjoy looking out on the street scenes outside. Life seems relaxed, lots of standing around and chatting! (Who was the chap who said ‘…this life... so full of care... we have no time to stand and stare’? Not true!) The ubiquitous plastic chair has replaced the charpai – but I am guessing the mood is the same.”