NEW DELHI - Why do some troubled children turn out to be artists and others turn their sufferings back against the world?

According to artist Rajesh Baderia, colours weave their magic on troubled young minds.

Spandan - Lightening up Smiles, an exhibition of 36 oil and acrylic paintings by Baderia at the Visual Arts Gallery at the India Habitat Centre, gave voice to the marginalised population of India through a series of tantric and cosmic art that uses religious symbols and an ethereal colour palette where the shades seemed to melt and merge on the canvas.

With the use of strong colours in his works, Baderia tries to promote harmony and solace taking the conscious to the supernatural domain. The highlight of the exhibition was a canvas, Spandan, a 48 inches by 66 inches canvas painted by children at Dilli Haat, 2008.

Representing a sun floating against a cosmic loop in a coloured infinite, the canvas symbolises an expression of pain, vulnerability, chaos, a city of hope, patriotism, hope and a smile.

‘I have a lot of tantric influences in my art because of my associations. It reflects the spiritual aspect of my work,’ said Baderia, an engineer with the National Thermal Power Corporation. This is his seventh solo show.

Baderia’s strength is his unconventional colour code in which he uses a vibrant shade of cobalt blue to blossom a cosmic flower on a black base and red to convey serenity though the colour traditionally signifies Ganesha’s base chakra and passion.

His series called Cosmic Flowers, in red and blue, and a canvas titled Krishna in a mottled shade of green and blue with Islamic religious shapes, were rivetting.

The show closed Dec 31.