Mekhala Bahl’s cryptic creations simulate the inchoate language of emo–tions and feelings. Steeped in dreams, places and memories, her work defies easy identification with representational elements. “My art is subjective. It’s what you find in the work, really.” But no work of art can be totally without reference to the physical world, concedes the petite artist. Recalling a college assignment when her entire class was asked to make an abstract painting, she laughs “no one could quite pull it off simply because every work alluded to something real.”

My first exposure to Bahl’s work triggers off a chain of personal associations. Virginia Woolf’s stream-of-conscious–ness descriptions in Mrs Dalloway. An R.E.M song. T S Eliot’s Rhapsody on a Windy Night…. I’m reminded of the title of one my favourite novels by Japanese writer Kazuo Ishiguro. To me Bahl is indeed an artist of the floating world.

An alumnus of Delhi College of Art, New Delhi, and Rhode Island School of Design, USA, Bahl has had a few successful solo exhibitions in New Delhi as well as in the USA. But she admits a lot of people in India were skeptical about her art when she started “My work is nothing but marks and shapes and colours. That response is more valid today than it was four or five years ago, especially for a young artist. Earlier, when I’d show my work in Delhi, people called it bold. But by global standards I do very conservative work. In the end, it doesn’t matter what people say. It’s about where your art leads you.”

Bahl, who treats her work almost like diary entries says as a 10 year old, she’d illustrate the stories she’d read using paints, clay and material she had access to in school. “Even today, I just image the feelings that are there in my everyday life. My work relates to that. On a day I’m feeling more active, it tends to be busier.”

Loath to limit her creative canvas, the 28-year-old loves working with different materials because “every material has a quality that directs what goes on it. It adds dimensions of meaning to the work.” She is currently fascinated by quilting, which started as an experiment about a year ago. “The light and shadow of the quilting creates a pressed, almost three-dimensional effect. That feeling is very interesting.” But nothing’s really implausible for the maverick who recently worked on candyfloss sculptures and installations. “I’m just having a good time experimenting with material. I liked working with a lot of media.”

Everything on display in her studio is work in progress. A striking composition of quilted circles that catches my eye suggests a playful mood. “It started as a very even pattern, but I knew I had to break it. So it became just colours and shapes and this feeling of very light air bubbles.” A bright smile lights up the pensively pretty face as I ask her about another ongoing work, a round quilted green plastic table cloth. “It’s a funny work. It has this lyrical poetry, yet there’s humour in the shapes, the way they’re dancing and floating in space.”

Anecdote, a collection she displayed last year showcases Bahl’s work from her years in America and spans about four and a half years. “My work is based on short personal memories so the word ‘anecdote’ was perfect for all those quirky details and stories.” The creations are marked by titles that hold cryptic clues to them. Pale Ale with its composition of fluid horizontal lines in dreamy pastels derives from her memories of scribbling on note books in school. The collection as a whole recalls Swiss abstract artist Paul Klee’s soft brush strokes.

Bahl who has shows coming up in Gallery Espace, New Delhi, and in New York in 2009, loves to travel and visit galleries like MOMA and Tate. “Showing my work in different countries is very exciting. I love the new places art residencies take me to.” The intrepid spirit wants to “push more so I can experiment more with less self-imposed restrictions. I’m very far from that unlimited sort of feeling yet but I believe there’s no limit to what you can do with colour or material”.