About Me

Dr. Vandana Sehgal is an architect, an artist and an academic.
As an academic, her area of research is architecture theory. Her thesis was entitled The Idea of Infinite in 20th century Architecture. She is an Associate Professor in Faculty of Architecture, Uttar Pradesh Technical University, Lucknow.

As an artist, she has done solo shows ‘Between Spaces’ ‘Ramayana’ ‘Lucknow- ek nazar’ all over India. She has participated in many group shows with various artists. She has painted Illustrations for Circle of Love by Debashish Chatterjee for Rupa Publications; Global Emirates: An Anthology of Tolerance and Enterprise, edited by Pranay Gupte published by Motivate Publishing, Dubai; Ram Varma’s modern epic, “Before he was God: Ramayana, Reconsidered, Recreated, published by Rupa.

As an architect, she is involved with private projects like hotels, memorials, homes and interiors.

I Believe…

Architecture begins where the mundane ends. The built reflects the deep structure of our roots, culture and ideas over time. These abstract ideas are often the soul of the structure that it manifests in different ways to the designer, user and a sensitive onlooker. Art is, of course, never mundane. It is always associated with abstraction since it is disassociated with the pragmatic. Academia in architecture should encourage students to delve into the thematic content, howsoever abstract, to give meaning and another layer to the pragmatic content.

As an architect, my preoccupation with spaces is instinctive. I am trained to perceive the potency and impact of the open and bounded, the enclosure and the unenclosed, the infinite and the limitless and the excitement of experiencing them sequentially or simultaneously.

The common comprehension of space is a void more or less contained by inherent or architectural constructs. This is the arena where life unfolds and gives it the character. Space may be bustling with festivity or silent with prayer; sacred with rituals or profane with chores; expectant with hope or bleak with despair. These are spaces that we forever associate with. Beyond these physically comprehensible spaces, there are also spaces that remain in the realm of metaphysical, which are in between the sacred and the profane; the clamor and the silence; the light and the dark. As an artist, I portray the experience of comprehensible spaces from life as well as the incomprehensible spaces on the canvas. Few of my paintings bring alive everyday life unfolding in tangible spaces while others manifest the intangible spaces that cloud my mind. Some paintings show the built spaces animated by us while the others represent the un-built spaces and evoke their in- between mystical character.