Anju is a modern artist who asserts that contemporary art is more about feeling. It's an art which cares little about sketching things as they appear and believes in giving them its own expression. Her art is about herself, as she is about her art. So, it becomes necessary to pick up the strands of her life before she became a painter.

Anju left her job at Grand Oberoi, Calcutta, where she worked as the PRO, to join CITCO, Chandigarh. It was a coveted post, but Anju wasn't satisfied. There had to be something more fulfilling. So, she tried her hand at kids' wear. ``Designing was fun, but manufacturing wasn't my scene. I wanted to do something of my own. A job was ruled out, as I'm not the 9 to 5 person. I didn't want to be bound by time,'' says the lady for whom freedom comes first. She quit her job only to embrace a vocation painting, that ``feel of the brush on her fingers'' -- and found peace.

She joined painting classes, the interest grew and the outcome was Meditation, her first series, inspired by Osho. Some of the paintings of the series again show prisms with figures caught in them. However, none of them seem to fight the triangular frameworks. They're there, calmly accepting, it seems, the force that has placed them there.

Anju made her first formal appearance on the art scene in 1996 with Punjab Lalit Kaka Akademi's annual exhibition. Other exhibitions and group shows followed. Among these were `Seasons in Indian Painting' at Government Museum and Art Gallery, one held by All India Fine Arts & Crafts Society, and another one titled `50 Years of Art in Independent India'. For her paintings displayed in the last exhibition, Anju bagged the AIFACS award. These were achievements, no doubt. But every artist aspires to hold a solo show. ``If all goes well, I will have mine by October -- either in Chandigarh or Delhi,'' she says.

Most of Anju's work is in monochrome. Even landscapes appear in one colour -- green. Yet her latest series is different, with vibrant colours splashed on the canvas. ``It's about the vibrant relationship man and woman share,'' she explains. So, you see faces caught in brilliant green, red, blue and yellow, representing harmony and conflict. If one part of these overlaps, the other is severed by cracks.

``I would have gone on painting for myself, even if my work hadn't been noticed,'' she says. But it was, all credit to her mentor Ram Kumar Sharma, she says. Her first painting went to Army Club, Gopalpur. Thereafter, she painted for private banks, Army clubs, hotel groups including Piccadily group of hotels, Best Western and the Surya (New Delhi). Some of her works have also been bought by private collectors both in India and abroad.

When she works for banks and hotels, she has to paint within some parameters. ``That's binding, to a certain extent. I prefer it if they give me a theme rather than sketch the painting in words,'' she says. It's this preference which prompted her to paint a series depicting horses for a private bank. The animals tear across the canvas, breaking through prisms. It's as though some wild, magnificient power has been unleashed by the brush. But why horses? ``Well, I wanted to paint horses, so I did,'' she says with a shrugs.

Oil and acrylics are her favourite media, for the contrast they present. ``I love the way oils blend. Acrylics are rough and intersperse the smoothness of oil with their irregularity. They cover both sides of my personality,'' she says laughing.

Anju does not believe in studying art as a subject, because that restricts one's creativity. People who approach art out of choice and as a hobby get addicted to it, she says. Unlike students who are forced into art, they are more in harmony with what they're doing, she opines. ``But art needs encouragements too, which isn't easy to come by,'' she rues. ``I've often felt that people don't always appreciate originality. They do not realise that if they purchase an original piece, it would be the only work of its kind in the entire world. It'll never be created again stroke by stroke. Even the artist cannot do it,'' she adds.

People have changed, perceptions have changed, fashion has changed and with them, art has changed, ``or evolved,'' says Anju. She adds, ``But people haven't kept themselves abridged with its changing trends,'' she says, ``and hence this apathy towards art.''