I am excited about being in Gallery Galli,” says Tunty Chauhan. The galli refers to the narrow road snaking through Lado Sarai, a fairly bustling urban village near the Qutub Minar. Chauhan has found a perfect new home for her gallery in this lively area that is rapidly acquiring a BoHo chic cachet. Gallery Threshold is now a state-of-the-art split level gallery, spread over 2,800 square feet. A touch minimalist with its clean lines, cement flooring and subtle lighting this space is perfect for showcasing contemporary art - all the more so because there are no distracting flourishes. Chauhan wanted her new gallery to have a high ceiling (which the lower level does have) because she is particularly keen on exhibiting contemporary sculpture.

Gallery Threshold was established by Tunty Chauhan in 1997, with a well-defined role to act as a catalyst in initiating contemporary art related activities and starting a dialogue between the artist and the viewer. And one of the mandates of the gallery was to focus on artists in the early stage of their career. The gallery also offers personalised consultancy services to leading corporations, hotels and individual collectors attuned to art and its growth potential as blue chip investment.

Gallery Threshold regularly hosts artists’ retreats abroad. And the harvest from two of them comprised the impressive inaugural show, titled, Mapping Memories - Painted Travelogues of China and Greece. While Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, Nilima Sheikh, Atul Dodiya, Anju Dodiya, V. Ramesh, Mrinalini Mukherjee, Amit Ambalal and Gargi Raina soaked in the spirit of China, Rameshwar Broota, Paramjit Singh, Gargi Raina (again), Nataraj Sharma and Vasundhara Tiwari went to Greece. Fortunately, this was not the usual stuff of art camps - hurriedly executed paintings created amidst the taxing business of having a good time. Here most of the works are layered, complex: the artist-travellers have tried to understand the essence or pulse of a different civilisation, and in some cases attempted to make comparisons with their own. The artists have obviously reflected upon what they saw in these two very diverse countries during their well-planned artistic odyssey.

Mapping memories 2 will follow the opening show. This time it’s neighbouring Burma where Chauhan shepherded her group of five painters -- Amit Ambalal, John Tun Sein, V Ramesh, Jayshree Chakravarti and Gargi Raina. Where, as writer-painter V. Ramesh so eloquently puts it they found themselves ‘walking in a watercolour’ and ‘time stands still’.