Woman's Era February 1999   Delhi Art World MADHU JAIN (Rabindra Bhawan Art Gallery)   A painting, being a silent statement of colour, imagination and style, should evoke intense feeling in the viewers. But in the case of Madhu Jain, who exhibited her works entitled Pathar Ke Rangon Se at Rabindra Bhawan Art Gallery, her paintings reveal little but what they reveal never fails to impress.   Madhu Jain was born in Jaipur and she studied art at the Sarda Ukil School of Arts, New Delhi. Her paintings have earned many awards. She had served as a special adviser to the International Artist Society in Japan. When she visited Japan with her husband, she adopted the Japanese style of painting but her first love is to project Indian culture through paintings in India and abroad.   She says, "I love painting because it satisfies my sense of creativity. Moreover, I don't like to paint themes such as violence or disasters. Although many artists do sketch them, I like to express something beautiful in my paintings."   Her works are mostly figurative with a bit of abstraction but they are easy to relate with. She is so influenced and impressed with Japanese art technique that she also creates her works with Japanese pigments. She says, "I learnt that originally the rock pigments used had come from India centuries ago."   "I quite believe this since mineral pigments and vegetable dyes were used in the cave paintings of Ajanta and Ellora. Nihonga and Sumi-e (Indian ink drawing) derived from natural minerals such as shells, corals and even semi-precious stones like garnets and pearls. the powders are ground upto 10 gradations from the fine sand grains. Textures is also used in my paintings."   Some of her works hint at the regenerative aspects of nature while her other works have the Rajasthani folk motifs. She has used silver and gold leaves in her Rajasthani folk scenes and her paintings are marked by a sense of freedom and firm brush strokes.